Peer Support Programs

Our Peer Support Programs provide support for people who are experiencing gambling harm, as well as powerful insights through stories of lived experience.

Research increasingly validates the role of peer support and lived experience stories in helping people gain a deeper understanding of the issue, reducing stigma, encouraging help-seeking, and inspiring hope and recovery. Across the mental health and alcohol and other drugs (AOD) sectors in particular, peer support is recognised as an effective way to reduce harm.

We partner with the following community organisations to deliver peer support and lived experience initiatives to prevent and reduce gambling harm.

Self-Help Addiction Resource Centre (SHARC)

Three Sides of the Coin  uses storytelling as a method of recovery, peer support and community education. Participants – people harmed by their own or someone else’s gambling – attend workshops and develop their combined stories into theatre. Their performances are shared with community and professional audiences. This program has been delivered in partnership with the Foundation since 2014.

Banyule Community Health 

The Peer Connection program supports people with lived experience to provide telephone-based support to those struggling to stop/control their gambling and for people impacted by another person’s gambling.

The ReSpin Program empowers volunteer educators to speak to various audiences—community groups, government agencies, health services, and media—about firsthand experiences with gambling harm

EACH

Chinese Peer Support program extends free and confidential phone support to individuals within the Chinese community suffering with gambling harm. It offers assistance to both individuals and their families or friends. Services are available in Cantonese and Mandarin, providing support to complement existing counselling or group interventions.

For further information and enquiries, please contact: gamblershelp@health.vic.gov.au