Evidence-based digital peer support platforms play an important role in the mental health ecosystem. 

In Australia, more than 40% of young people are currently facing mental health challenges, but despite the myriad of young people experiencing difficulties, many aren’t accessing support. 

Young people can face several barriers to accessing support, including stigma, self-reliance and poor mental health literacy. However, for far too many young people, these barriers are outside of their control. 

ReachOut’s 2023–24 Social Impact Report found that 74 per cent of our users had experienced barriers to accessing support elsewhere. These barriers include affordability, availability, and accessibility of services. 

For some, the barrier might be the service model itself. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to mental health service provision. While some might benefit from the traditional one-to-one therapy model, others prefer a non-clinical support service. 

Research shows that traditional clinical interventions can be overwhelming and confronting for some young people. ReachOut’s extensive user research found that young people want one-to-one non-clinical support available at short notice in an environment where they feel comfortable and safe.

As the mental health system shifts to being increasingly recovery-oriented and person-centred, services that respond to the unique needs of each person, and enable young people to be heard, hear from others with lived experience and feel supported to make their own choices, in a stigma-free and safe way, are critical.

This is where digital peer support services play a key role. 

But, for these services to be successful, they must be grounded in evidence and continuously evaluated and refined. To continue meeting young people’s service needs, we need to keep listening, learning and evolving. 

With that in mind, we evaluated our peer support service. The findings are outlined in our new report  – The power of peer work: An evaluation of ReachOut’s PeerChat service. 

ReachOut PeerChat

Launched in 2022, ReachOut PeerChat was the first of its kind digital peer support service. 

PeerChat provides real-time chat-based support for young people aged 16–25. Building on over a decade of experience in digitally-delivered peer support, it is designed to support young people facing mental health difficulties and everyday challenges. 

The service connects young people to peer workers through a text-based platform, where they can chat anonymously using a pseudonym. Free and confidential, PeerChat addresses the unique barriers that prevent many young people from seeking help. 

Peer workers are young people themselves who have undergone training to safely engage and connect with users. They offer support by sharing their own lived experience of mental health challenges and recovery. In a digitally mediated world, young people who have experienced mental health challenges and recovery are uniquely positioned to support other young people on their help-seeking journey through digital conversations and safe storytelling. 

Underpinned by the ReachOut Model of Care, the PeerChat Duty-of-Care Framework, the National Framework for Recovery-Oriented Mental Health Services and the Trauma-Informed Care Model, PeerChat’s peer workers provide non-clinical, person-directed and recovery-oriented support to young people. 

Evaluation findings 

This was the first evaluation of PeerChat since it launched. Conducted by ReachOut’s internal Research and Social Impact team, the evaluation sought to assess the effectiveness of the service and identify areas for improvement. 

The report highlights the positive impact ReachOut PeerChat is having on young people in Australia, and explores the unique and important role peer work plays in the mental health sector, spotlighting lived experience as a powerful tool that helps people feel validated and more confident to try different self-help strategies. 

The evaluation employed a mixed-methods approach, combining qualitative and quantitative data collected between June and October 2024. 

Ultimately, the evaluation found that PeerChat is having a positive impact, with 74 per cent of users reporting ‘feeling better’ after their chat. 

86 per cent of PeerChat users experienced at least one positive outcome during their session. This included helping young people feel more confident talking about difficult issues, with 70 per cent able to open up about their worries, some sharing their struggles for the first time.

The evaluation also found that PeerChat is helping encourage young people to take action. 

• 53% of users learnt self-help strategies.
• 55% co-developed self-help strategies. 
• 53% tried other sources of mental health support following their session.
• 57% tried the tips a peer worker had shared with them. 

Other positive outcomes following a PeerChat session included reduced distress and helping young people feel less alone in their experiences.

‘PeerChat gave me an opportunity to express the struggles I faced. They [peer workers] helped me to realise that school is not the be-all or end-all. School didn’t feel as crippling. PeerChat gives people hope for the future … that’s for sure.’ PeerChat user interview. 

‘I feel hopeful and supported. I feel I have a safe place to open up. I feel I can come to this service before resorting to harmful means. I can use these strategies … and overcome challenges which previously, I wouldn’t have had the right tools for.’ 2024 Annual User Survey

Key learnings and recommendations 

Lived experience as the bedrock of the intervention 

The peer workers’ lived experience is critical to the success of the service. Where clinical services rely on therapies to support their patients, peer workers draw on their lived experience of mental health challenges and life experiences to support others, fostering connection, understanding and empowerment. 

It is this shared experience that deepens the connection between the peer worker and the service user, thereby enhancing the credibility of the support and perspectives provided.

The value of lived experience is further amplified when the peer worker and young person share similar experiences. 

PeerChat cannot currently match service users with peer workers based on lived experience or other characteristics. However, when it does happen, the user outcomes are more evident. A ReachOut peer worker called these cases ’golden chats.’ 

Building a cohesive team culture is key 

A cohesive team culture, alongside an organisational emphasis on individual self-care, has contributed immensely to the team’s high morale and satisfaction in their role, ultimately enabling the service to succeed. 

Building a positive team culture relies on a shared understanding of the value of lived experience, both within an organisation and across the broader mental health sector. As with all aspects of Lived Experience workforce development, this requires a focus on the authenticity and uniqueness of lived experience roles, which, when working as part of multidisciplinary teams, can be challenging. 

We’ve attempted to overcome this by sourcing peer-work-delivered external supervision to support the team, rather than clinical supervision. We’ve created opportunities for growth by introducing several new roles, including Peer Work Team Leader, Peer Work Manager and Shift Supervisor. Being managed by peers with lived experience is core to supporting the lived experience workforce. We’ve also embedded lived experience across the organisation more broadly, through dedicated roles in education and reputation, and research and impact. 

A positive team culture also depends on a genuine commitment to co-production. 

From the outset, ReachOut PeerChat was co-produced not only with service users, but the peer workers who would be delivering the service. This co-design approach allowed the organisation to develop processes and ways of working for a lived-experience workforce. It included commissioning literature reviews of peer work, modelling best practice and engaging external lived experience advisors to guide the process. Today, our goal is to co-produce everything we do with our lived experience team. Every decision that could affect the team, how they operate, and the young people they serve, we aim to make collaboratively. 

This positive culture, which values lived experience, has been an essential element in the development of recovery-oriented care and the success of the service. 

Looking to the future 

At ReachOut, we’re committed to continuously improving our services so they best meet the needs of young people in Australia. The learnings from this evaluation will inform future service improvements by addressing these key areas: 

• Service reach. The majority of PeerChat’s users (87%) live in metropolitan areas in Australia. However, the service is well-positioned to meet the needs of, and minimise the barriers faced by, regional and remote young people. This will be a key area of focus in the future. 

• Returning service users. While the majority of users (87%) completed one session, others with more complex issues completed three or more. Those users often sought to rebook with the same peer worker to build on their session. We are currently exploring the feasibility of adding rebooking capabilities. 

• High-risk users and users with complex needs. In some cases, a PeerChat user may have highly complex needs or might be highly distressed – between one quarter and one third of users are deemed ‘at risk’. In these cases, the peer worker has needed to take steps to ensure the safety of the young person. They may have needed to collaborate on a safety plan and, in some urgent cases, may have encouraged or engaged external crisis or emergency support. When this happens, it can shift the tone of the conversation. In the future, we will need to explore how to balance supporting users in high distress while continuing to build rapport with them, a critical part of peer work. 

• Inability to ‘match’ based on lived experience. In some cases, the inability to match peer workers and users based on shared lived experience impacted relatability, and in turn, overall impact. Matching can be particularly important for users from diverse backgrounds, such as First Nations users. As the service evolves, this is something we will consider. 

Overall, the evaluation of ReachOut PeerChat confirms the important role of digital peer work in supporting young people’s mental wellbeing, particularly by increasing accessibility, reducing stigma, and fostering feelings of being heard and understood. 

Check out the evaluation here: The power of peer work: an evaluation of ReachOut’s PeerChat service.