About our Peer Advisor Programme
It enables people with lived experience to work as volunteers or paid staff in advice, guidance and support roles in local services. Our Matrix-accredited model has been tried and tested for nearly two decades. Whatever your sector, service or organisation, it can bring diversity, professionalism and authenticity, particularly if you are working with non-traditional learners or people who have been chronically socially excluded.
What it is
The Peer Advisor Programme is core to St Giles’s work and can be embedded as an end-to-end programme in any service or project working to support people facing disadvantage. It offers a structured package of:
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- Robust application, interview, risk assessment, induction and onboarding support
- ‘Learning to Advise’, an 11-session City & Guilds assured course introducing advice and guidance work
- Volunteer or work placements in frontline advice and guidance roles
- Supervision and support to ensure quality and impact, enable progression and development
- Assessment and portfolio building to gain City & Guilds Level 3 NVQ Certificate in Advice & Guidance
- A suite of additional assured short courses and qualifications, including housing and homelessness, young people at risk, employment support, and trauma-informed practice.
Beverley's story
After training and working as a Peer Advisor with our north London team, Beverley then started her own business with our support.
Watch this short film on our Peer Advisor Programme
Watch this four minute film to see the Yorkshire Team delivering the Peer Advisor Programme and hear from people who have benefitted from it.
