I have spent 10 years working in health across SA, NSW, and QLD and with the Royal Flying Doctors. While I worked primarily as a dietitian, I have always found meaning and purpose helping with workplace support and employee wellbeing. I’m thrilled to be appointed as the new coordinator of our Peer Responders across Metro North Mental Health Services.

I would love to hear from anyone, anywhere how we can use my strengths of compassion, authenticity and connection to make our workplaces psychologically safe and (dare I say it) a little bit more fun. My goal as the new Mental Health Peer Responder Coordinator is to train and support at least one Peer Responder per team across all our sites. We are building a strong army of kind and compassionate people, all like-minded in their desire to improve workplace culture through collegial support and transitioning our staff from a surviving to thriving state in the New Year.

This amazing group of volunteers have worked hard over the last year to support our Mental Health staff through the pandemic and the challenges that have come with constant change and adaption. We currently have 28 Peer Responders over 21 mental health teams and their hard work has not gone unnoticed. The Peer Responder Team have been in high demand due to their ability to provide free and confidential psychological first aid to their colleagues with the contextual knowledge only a true peer on the front line holds. EOIs are now open so please make contact via email (amy.duff@health.qld.gov.au) if you’d like to be part of this wellbeing movement. Training opportunities will commence early Feb 2023.

More information on the Peer Responder program, including Frequently Asked Questions can be found here.