The employment of consumers in mental health services: politically correct tokenism or genuinely useful?

Abstract

Objective: The aim of this paper is to examine the role of consumers as service providers and to describe the successful employment of peer support workers in a public mental health service.

Conclusions: The Peer Support Worker program in Adelaide, South Australia is consistent with evidence obtained from previous research in demonstrating the successful training and employment of consumers as peer workers in a public mental health service.

• consumer roles
• experiential knowledge
• mentor
• peer support
• peer worker