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"Being a peer for me means sharing my experience to provide hope – that things will get better and that it is possible to live a fulfilling and successful life even with a mental illness. It is also about helping those who do not have this experience to understand. I can be a support and a source of information for those who are going through tough times. Being a peer also means continuous personal growth and learning new things – for example, where the boundaries of my mental well-being are," stated one of the peers.

Peer support is an accompanying tool for psychological, psychotherapeutic, and psychiatric assistance, utilising the benefits of the experiences of individuals with mental health challenges and their subsequent recovery. In the context of mental health prevention among young people at the university, the Peer 2 Be project was initiated by the Information and Counselling Centre of the University of West Bohemia in Pilsen. It aimed to recruit, train, and support student peers, while reflecting on this journey in an online guide – the so-called toolkit – which outlines what peer support entails, the opportunities and challenges that may arise in this area, who it is suitable for, and how to begin this form of mental health support in universities or high schools.

The toolkit is accessible to anyone interested in learning more about peer support, becoming a peer themselves, or working with peers. It serves as a methodological support for peer training, inspiration for the recruitment of peers, the creation of a peer community, and the training and subsequent care of the involved students. The intention is to inspire and share the journey and experiences of the project team, which plans to continue supporting the peer community at the university.

In addition to professionals, the project also involved students with experience as peers, as well as students interested in helping others and sharing their stories related to their experiences when starting university and throughout their studies. You can learn how these students became engaged in peer support in an article (in Czech) by a student peer on the blog Studentské otazníky.

The project team was primarily inspired by collaboration with the Icelandic organisation Traustur Kjarni and the Pilsen organisation Ledovec. With the help of their experts, they successfully selected, trained, and supported student peers. The experiences gained from a week-long mobility program in Iceland, where students participated in an intensive training called Intentional Peer Support, focused on sharing, listening, negotiating boundaries and personal limits, deepening understanding, and reflecting on trauma. These insights, along with workshops and training sessions with professionals in the Czech Republic, were integrated into the content of the toolkit by the project coordinators.

On the website  www.bezbarier.zcu.cz  in the Projects section, you will find a detailed description of the project, practical tips, and ideas to reflect on how peer support helps and how it can be utilised in promoting mental health at all levels of education. The Peer 2 Be project builds on the previous project PODUZ (Support for Mental Health in Adolescence), which focused on education and destigmatization in the field of mental health and began collaborating with high schools.

The project is funded by the EEA and Norway Grants. Project registration number: MF-22773/2024/5804-3.