Building Connection and Resilience Through Intentional Peer Support
Loneliness and social isolation are among the greatest public health challenges of our age. This is recognised by multiple parliamentary inquiries into the issue. While much attention is rightly given to clinical services, there is much less focus on the social architecture we need to cultivate in order to sustain connection, reduce isolation, and foster resilience.
In this post, I’m exploring the transformational potential of the intentional peer support model and why it matters, how it works, and why I believe it should be central to any strategy addressing loneliness, mental health and community wellbeing.
loneliness matters
People experiencing mental ill health (or simply feeling deeply disconnected) are at heightened risk of isolation. Once isolated, they are more likely to withdraw further, lose contact with informal supports (family, friends), and become caught in a spiral of declining mental health. As I noted in a recent submission: “Poor mental health causes people to isolate and isolation makes thinking worse.” Technology, urbanisation, the fragmentation of traditional social structures (extended families, regular community rituals) have added to the challenge. Throughout history, humans have never need to engineer social ties in the way they do today.
If the “default” pathways for social connection are weakening, we need to build new, intentional social architectures that enable people to show up, belong and activate peer relationships.
What is the intentional peer support model?
Intentional Peer Support (IPS) is more than peer mentoring. It is a philosophy and relational framework centred on mutuality, learning together, transformation and growth. Intentional Peer Support (IPS) is a way of thinking about and inviting transformative relationships. Practitioners learn to use relationships to see things from new angles, develop greater awareness of personal and relational patterns, and support and challenge each other in trying new things.” (Intentional Peer Support)
Key features include:
Relationships are partnerships, not helper/helpee. (ncmhr.org)
The starting point is not “What’s wrong?” but “What happened?”, recognising lived experience, meaning, worldview. (solartoolkit.us)
It’s trauma-informed, relational, focussed on moving towards meaning and possibility, not just away from deficit. (otrtw.org)
It emphasises connection, mutuality, worldview exploration, and movement (tasks of IPS). (otrtw.org)
Peer support, done with intention, becomes a catalyst for both connection and recovery, for individuals and for community.
Why this model matters for loneliness and wellbeing
Loneliness is not just a lack of company, it’s disconnection from meaningful relationships, from belonging, from shared purpose. The intentional peer support model builds structures which enable individuals to engage, belong, and co create connection. There are three key inter-linked dynamics:
People experiencing mental-illness or high isolation are particularly vulnerable to loneliness, and isolation in turn worsens mental health.
Social architecture that once supported connection (extended families, regular community groups, neighbourhood rituals) has eroded; individuals now often have to create their social lives rather than these being default.
Building intentional community through peer-based, mutual-help structures can simultaneously improve mental health and reduce loneliness.
An intentional peer support group provides the “space to show up”. It creates the routine of gathering, the relationships of equals, the possibility of friendship, the environment to test new ways of thinking with someone who has “been there”. This is distinct from purely clinical or one-on-one models, which often lack the relational scaffolding of peer networks and do not by themselves create meaningful friendship and belonging.
Practical implications for organisations and policy
If you’re a leader in non-profit, government, or corporate wellbeing strategy, what shifts are implied by adopting or supporting intentional peer support models?
Reframe services: Instead of just “what we treat”, consider “what we build”. We can create an infrastructure of connection, not just clinical response.
Invest in peer leadership: People with lived experience are not only recipients of support. They can, and should, be co-designers and facilitators of peer ecosystems.
Design the social architecture: Weekly gatherings, regular peer check-ins, safe structure for social interaction, pathways to leadership and friendship. (As one submission noted, social architecture means “the intentional design of environments to encourage specific social behaviours and interactions.”)
Expand beyond the individual: The model shifts focus from “fixing problems” to growing networks of mutuality and belonging and intersects with community development, inclusion, prevention, and not just treatment.
Measure differently: Outcomes include resilience, connection, social capital, not simply symptom reduction.
Look across lifecycles and settings: Peer support can work in adult populations, among youth, in workplaces, in schools, in communities where isolation is high.
Humility in power dynamics: Intentional peer support reminds us: it’s not about “experts fixing others”. It’s about peers learning, growing, discovering together. The mindset shift is critical.
Today’s workplaces, communities and services are increasingly aware of mental health challenges, burnout, isolation, and fragmentation. The pandemic, remote work, geographic mobility, the fading of once-stable community anchors mean connection cannot be assumed. A proactive approach is required.
By embracing intentional peer support as part of the solution, organisations can future proof their wellbeing and service delivery strategies, moving from reactive models to ones of sustainable connection, belonging and community resilience.
Final thoughts
Connection is protective. Not just any connection, but connection grounded in mutuality, lived experience, shared learning, and possibility. Intentional peer support offers a powerful blueprint for how we might rebuild the social scaffolding our communities need. For organisations ready to shift their mindset from “service delivery” to “community building”, this is a model worth taking seriously.
If you’re interested in exploring how to implement intentional peer support models, embed peer leadership, or design community connected frameworks in your organisation or program, let’s talk. I’d be delighted to walk you through how this plays out in practice.
