Peer Support Plus offers free, weekly Peer-facilitated Support Groups to adults in the Leeds Metropolitan District who want to learn to better manage their mental health.
Everyone experiences episodes of mental ill health, just as everyone experiences episodes of physical ill health. Our Peer-facilitated Support Groups help adults throughout Leeds take responsibility for their mental wellbeing. By relating (in a safe, kind, supportive and confidential space) their first hand ‘Lived Experiences’ and hearing other describe techniques, coping strategies and behaviours that helped (or didn’t help) them deal with similar feelings, all participants discover how they might better manage their own mental health.
Our beneficiaries and facilitators believe passionately in the benefits of mental health Peer-facilitated Support Groups where participation is open-ended. It’s okay to leave and fly solo but it’s easy to come back if further support is needed. Beneficiaries need to have confidence their Support Group will still be there to help them regroup and move forward.
2025/26 is our sixth year of offering weekly Peer-facilitated Support Groups in-person and by Zoom.
On top of previous rising levels of mental ill-health, many people in Leeds are struggling to cope with the aftermath of the COVID pandemic and/or impacts on their mental wellbeing caused by the ongoing economic crisis. The number of adults in Leeds whose mental health is suffering continues to grow rapidly while limited NHS mental health support provision is often inaccessible and taxpayer funding for Third Sector mental health support has been tightly focussed on minorities, short term, or withdrawn.
Our Trustees choose to operate and manage Peer Support Plus CIO at very low cost so we can avoid becoming dependent upon regular grants or taxpayer funding.
All of our Trustees, Facilitators and Administrators are volunteers. We are ordinary everyday people. Most of us continue to actively manage our own mental health. Together we achieved something extraordinary, founding the charity during the Covid pandemic then expanding and sustaining its services. We are living proof, if that were needed, that Peer Support works.
Our Board of Trustees and Delivery Team meetings are conducted by Zoom at times which suit our volunteers. We have no employees, no office and no physical assets to support. Our expenses are nearly all connected with operating Peer Support Groups – including Publicity, Recruitment, Facilitator training, DBS checks, Insurance, Mobile phone, Website, Zoom licence, and some internet-connected loan tablets so people who are digitally-disadvantaged can participate in our Zoom Support Group.
In 2024/25, on an operating budget of just £1,600, we will make available 10 seats at each of over 100 two-hour Support Groups. That is extraordinary value. We are aiming to recruit four or more additional volunteer Facilitators to help us maintain existing Support Groups and, at very little additional cost, increase the number of weekly Peer-facilitated Support Groups we can offer from two to three.
Past one-off Grants, ongoing small Donations and Reserves mean we are financially secure until at least March 2026 but we must ramp up our fundraising efforts now if we are to survive longer. Because our costs are modest, funding them from Income in 2025/26 and beyond is a very achievable goal.
Your fundraising efforts will improve the wellbeing of our beneficiaries, their families and friends, and reduce demand for NHS and Adult Social Care funded support.
We would be entirely content to recruit a specialist volunteer Fundraiser who would report to our Treasurer Trustee.
(If you were also able to offer broader skills and experience and were interested in taking on a second volunteer role helping us with the ongoing Governance and Development of the charity, we would be open to our Fundraiser joining the Board as an additional Trustee. Please see the Trustee advert on our website peersupportplus.org).
We don’t expect you to be out of pocket if you travel for training or to volunteer for us, or incur other costs directly related to the role. Fundraisers (and Trustees) are able to claim and be reimbursed reasonable pre-authorised and receipted expenses.
Skills developed
Administration, Business Planning, Communication, Community Development, Decision Making, Financial management, Interpersonal Skills, Mental Health, Problem Solving, Strategic Planning, SWOT/GAP Analysis, Teamwork, Leadership.
Next steps
To learn more about Peer Support Plus CIO, please browse our website peersupportplus.org.
This is a voluntary role so no contract of employment or other obligation will be established between us.
Volunteering as a Fundraiser would not bar you from being a beneficiary of the charity but charity law effectively bars Trustees from also being beneficiaries of the charity.
If you are inspired to explore the possibility of volunteering with us, please email Lisa Bamford our Chair of Trustees chair@peersupportplus.org or leave a message at 07434 614 829 mentioning your name and telephone number. Lisa will try to call you back for an informal chat at a time that suits you.
Volunteer as a Trustee – Peer Support Plus CIO