Co-designing Mobile Resources for Peer Support Providers in the First Responder Community

Research Objectives: The main research objective was to explore the support needs of peer support providers in public safety organizations. A key secondary objective was to generate recommendations for improvement of PeerOnCallSupport, a peer support app designed by and for First Responders.

Design: A qualitative interpretive description approach was adopted to gather perspectives of peer supporters within a larger co-design and implementation trial. An iterative thematic analysis approach was used to analyze data.

Setting: Recruitment occurred across four provinces in Canada (Alberta, Ontario, Newfoundland, and Saskatchewan) and interviews were conducted virtually.

Participants: A purposive referred sample of 12 stakeholders (9 men and 3 women) were recruited across four sectors (communications, fire, paramedics, and police), including six peer support trainers, four organizational leaders, and two clinicians who work with peer support providers.

Interventions: Not applicable.

Main Outcome Measures: Semi-structured interviews were conducted to explore perspectives on recruitment, training, challenges and support needs of peer support providers, and content for the PeerOnCallSupport app.

Results: Four main tensions of the peer support role were identified by participants: personal mental health issues, the “dual role” of being a first responder and a peer support provider, streamlined access to support, and the diverse and complex challenges experienced by First Responders. The results also outlined recommendations for the PeerOnCallSupport app. Recommendations for peer support included implementation of a nomination and screening process, demographic diversity among peer supporters, ongoing structured training, and guidelines on the peer support role. Recommendations for app development were to provide links to resources for self evaluation, self care, and critical incident management and access to clinical oversight.

Conclusions: Peer support provision can have positive and negative implications for peer support providers, as evidenced by four opposing tensions identified in this study. Occupational therapists working with First Responders need to understand the potential value and challenges of technology as a tool for peer support and its role in a stepped model of care. Upstream collaboration with First Responders is needed to co-create contextually relevant resources and supports. Future research will include input from peer supporters following implementation of the app in a range of public safety organizations to continue to expand on the peer support provider experience and inform future app content.

Author(s) Disclosures: The authors declare there is no conflict of interest.