Join us for a reflective webinar exploring the future of peer support, inspired by key insights from Imroc’s 2024 event Peer Support: Visions of Opportunity for 2030. This session will draw on the newly published briefing paper by Holly Harris and Sophie Soklaridis, offering space to deepen understanding, share ideas, and build momentum for change.
Grounded in the values of equity, diversity, and inclusion, the conversation will focus on:
The expansion and diversification of peer roles
Strategies for supporting peer employees
Emerging approaches to peer support oversight
Together, we’ll reflect on the transformative potential of peer support to challenge systemic harms, honour diverse ways of knowing, and co-create liberatory futures—both within and beyond mental health systems.
Date & Time
🗓 Friday 20 June 2025
🕘 9:00 – 10:00am EST / 2:00 – 3:00pm BST
📍 Online (Zoom link provided upon registration)
What to Expect
A presentation from Holly and Sophie exploring key themes from their paper
An open Q&A with space for dialogue and exchange
Time for participants to share ideas, reflections, and practical steps forward
Why Join Us?
This webinar offers a space to:
Reflect on the role of peer support in systemic transformation
Explore how peer roles can expand to honour diversity and lived experience
Consider how we support and sustain peer-led workforces
Connect with others committed to justice, equity, and co-production
Build solidarity across the peer support movement
Speakers & Guests
Emma Watson - Facilitator
Emma Watson is the Programme Lead for Research, Evaluation, Publications and Development at Imroc, and the Peer Support Lead at Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust. In her NHS role, she has led the strategic introduction of peer support workers across a range of clinical services, establishing training and supervision processes to support this work.
Emma has held a number of peer roles herself, including peer support worker, supervisor, trainer, and researcher. She was one of the first peer workers employed at Nottinghamshire NHS Trust in 2010—an experience that deeply shaped her own recovery and understanding of the power of lived experience in mental health services.
At Imroc, Emma is committed to centring lived experience in research and publications, and to creating accessible, creative ways for knowledge to be developed and shared. She is currently leading the development of an MSc in Lived Experience Leadership, and oversees Imroc’s research and evaluation projects.
Emma has published widely on peer support and co-authored the book Peer Support in Mental Health, a foundational text in the field. Her PhD explored how peer support is shaped by the context of NHS services, and how peer workers navigate and resist pressures that may compromise the authenticity of their role.
Holly Harris - Speaker
Holly Harris is a research professional specialising in co-production, Recovery Colleges, peer support, and participatory-action research. Holly leverages her lived experiences of mental health system encounters and Master’s in Critical Disability Studies to ensure that many perspectives, including lived-experience perspectives, are meaningfully engaged in mental health education, research, and programming. Holly is a Research Coordinator at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and is pursuing a PhD in Gender, Feminist, and Women’s Studies at York University.
Dr. Sophie Soklaridis - Speaker
Dr. Sophie Soklaridis is a Senior Scientist and Scientific Director at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. She is the Research Chair, Recovery and Equity-focused Mental Health Education Research. She is an Associate Professor at the Department of Psychiatry and Department of Family & Community Medicine at the University of Toronto and the Vice-Chair of Mental Health and Addictions Equity and EDIIA at the Department of Psychiatry. Her scholarly foci include patients as partners in research and mental health education and the influence of power on academic medicine.
Registration
This session is open to anyone interested in the future of peer support.
To book a free place email: events@imroc.org stating the webinar you wish to register for
Please register by Monday 16th June. Spaces are limited and tend to fill quickly, so we encourage early sign-up to avoid missing out.