Intentional Peer Support: An online overview (3 hours) - May 2025

This is a 3-hour session offering a short introduction to Intentional Peer Support.

This IPS overview will run on Wednesday 14th May in the following timezones:

USA and Canada

PDT: 12.30 - 3.30pm

CDT: 2.30 - 5.30pm

EDT: 3.30 - 6.30pm

New Zealand:

Thursday 15th May from 7.30am - 10.30am

“As peer support in mental health proliferates, we must be mindful of our intention: social change. It is not about developing more effective services, but rather about creating dialogues that have influence on all of our understandings, conversations, and relationships.” – Shery Mead, Founder of IPS

Intentional Peer Support is a way of thinking about and inviting transformative relationships. It provides a powerful framework for creating relationships where both people learn and grow together. IPS is used across the world in community, peer support, and human services settings, and is a tool for community development with broad appeal to people from all walks of life.

Why IPS? Peers come together around shared experiences and often a desire to change lives. But without a new framework to build upon, people frequently re-enact “help” based on what was done to them. IPS offers a foundation for doing something different. We come from a history of grassroots alternatives that focus on building relationships that are mutual, explorative, and conscious of power.

In this three hour online overview participants will learn about the history of IPS as well as the tasks and principles of this transformational framework. There will be an opportunity to ask questions and have interactive discussions with the facilitators and other participants.

Please log in from a quiet, undisturbed location for this event as there are interactive sessions with discussions and break out groups, not webinars.