Peer Leadership

The Peer Leadership Framework (below) illustrates the path to becoming a Peer Leader. That’s not to say that everyone will complete all four steps of the programme. People can exit at any level.

The journey to becoming a Peer Leader starts with developing some knowledge so you become more aware of how to change your own situation. That’s Step One. Step Two is for people who want to move on to helping others. Step Three is for people who want to become a Peer Leader and collaborate with the health and care system to bring change. Those who want to facilitate the work of Peer Leaders will complete Step Four.

What happens at each step?

1. Step One

Maybe you’re not sure what personalised care is all about, but you’d like to know more because you hope it could make a positive difference in your life or in the life of a family member or close friend. You’re interested to know why the NHS needs to change and hear examples of personalised care in practice.

Step One will give you an understanding of the aims of personalised care and what is possible.

Maybe you’re already familiar with personal health budgets, social prescribing, peer support or health coaching and are keen to become a Peer Leader.

Step One is an opportunity to check your knowledge of personalised care because Step Two and Step Three will build on this.

2. Step Two

By now, you’ll be familiar with all the components of personalised care and may want to deepen your knowledge. You’re interested to know where the idea of personalised care came from and the difference personalised care has made to many people’s lives.

Step Two will give you a broader understanding of personalised care and is for people who want to use what they’ve learned to help others. Like Step One, it’s to build the foundations of peer leadership.

3. Step Three

Maybe you have your own lived experience of personalised care. It’s made a positive difference in your life and the lives of people you know. You realise there’s a lot of work to do to make personalised care work well for the whole population and want to work with NHS England and NHS Improvement or your local services to enable the system to change.

Then Step Three is for you. It’s for people who want to work with others to effect change within the system. It is a blended learning course to develop Peer Leaders. The first four weeks are delivered on Future Learn. Then the course moves to either face-to-face learning or virtually through Microsoft Teams.

4. Step Four

Maybe you’re a member of a local coproduction group or work for a local voluntary sector organisation. You’re keen to take up a leadership role as a facilitator but know you need to develop some skills and knowledge.

Step Four is the Peer Leadership Facilitation course and is also a blended learning course. This is for people who want to facilitate the work of Peer Leaders to effect change within the system.

Certification

You won’t automatically receive a certificate at the end of the Step One and Step Two Foundation Programme because certificates aren’t required to progress through the Steps or for successful completion of the Peer Leadership Development Programme. If you do require a certificate, a FutureLearn upgrade would be required. Otherwise, the course is free to access.

FutureLearn has two upgrade options – ‘unlimited’ and ‘course’ upgrade. Either option will provide you with a certificate and continued access to the course content (no time limit). You can upgrade on the FutureLearn platform at any point before, during or after the course – there’s no deadline.

If you think a course upgrade is necessary for you and this is something you cannot easily achieve at the moment, please contact us to discuss at england.pldp@nhs.net. We have a limited number of upgrade voucher codes. Also, don’t forget you can take a screenshot of the ‘successful completion page’ if that would be helpful.

Step Three and Step Four are delivered differently and all learners who successfully complete the Step Three and Step Four, Peer Leadership Academy and Peer Leader Facilitation course, will automatically receive a certificate. No upgrade is required.