Everyone benefits from support when times are tough
Over the last 15 years, we’ve seen first-hand the power of peer-to-peer, particularly through Family by Family, Weavers and the Virtual Village. Now, after years of partnering with not-for-profits and organisations to implement peer-to-peer in their contexts across five countries, and supporting hundreds of practitioners to build their peer-to-peer capability, we’re taking our next step.
We want to see peer-to-peer become a regular part of all our service systems, and we’re developing a national initiative with the ambition to make that happen. Peer-to-peer is the logical choice to fill the widening gap between our overstretched service systems and declining levels of social capital.
Right now people from all walks of life are stuck in tough times, because they can’t access the right kind of support through services - or choose not to engage with professionals. At the same time, we’re overlooking an abundant source of support in our communities that offer a practical alternative: people who’ve been through tough times themselves, and are now willing, ready and able to help others do the same.
The power of peer-to-peer
Australians are missing out on the help that’s just around the corner.
Right now people from all walks of life are stuck in tough times, because they can’t access the right kind of support through services - or choose not to engage with professionals. At the same time, we’re overlooking an abundant source of support in our communities that offer a practical alternative: people who’ve been through tough times themselves, and are now willing, ready and able to help others do the same.
Australians are missing out on the help that’s just around the corner.
Interested in a new way of harnessing the power of lived experience?
We’ve written a paper that explores the power and efficacy of peer-to-peer network systems, highlighting global case studies from diverse organisations and communities who are harnessing this power for change.
We believe that peer-to-peer support could be harnessed to make progress on persistent challenges such as child protection, homelessness, recidivism, chronic disease and the resettlement of refugees, and could mobilise support in areas of escalating demand such as disability, ageing, caring, mental health and disaster preparedness and recovery.
Peer-to-peer works
Across Australia there are powerful examples of how connecting peers gets real results for individuals, communities and governments.
For example the Family by Family program helps 90% of families achieve their goals (2012 evaluation), builds social capital in communities, creates education and employment outcomes (predominately in relation to the social sector) whilst also reducing children’s entry into out of home care by 44% (participation led to a 44% reduction in child being removed into OOHC) and emergency department visitations by 6% (BetterStart Quasi-experimental evaluation, 2025) .
There are equally impressive peer-to-peer responses for young parents, mental health, pediatric palliative care, caring and foster care - and more examples from around the world that you can read in our 2023 paper ‘The Benefits are Mutual’.
But the approach is still at the margins, common only in a few states and sectors in Australia.
Examples of our peer-to-peer work:
The Young Parent Project
Junction and TACSI, Australia
Supports parents under 25 years, many of whom have experienced significant trauma. The program reduces risk factors for child protection intervention and increases resilience, parental confidence, and competence – funded by the Commonwealth Outcomes Fund.Family by Family
TACSI and UC, Australia and UK
Connects families with a shared experience of tough times to work on goals and work towards change. evidence indicates families that participate have increased confidence, parenting capacity, social connection and ultimately works towards a reduction of families interfacing with crisis servicesWeavers
TACSI, Australia and New Zealand
Supports family carers and has been implemented by 11 organisations — reducing social isolation, improving mental and physical health, and increasing advocacy for quality care.Paediatric Palliative Peer Mentor Project
TACSI and Women’s and Children's Hospital, South Australia
Connects bereaved families to families currently caring for their child with a life-limiting condition. The program supported 80% of participating families in increasing their emotional support, social connectedness, and ability to talk openly about their grief.Embedding peer support work into GambleAware
TACSI and the Office of Responsible Gambling, NSW
In 2024-25, the Office of Responsible Gambling engaged TACSI for a 2.5-year period to support 10 service providers across metropolitan and regional NSW to introduce Peer Support Workers into the GambleAware stepped care model.
Peer-to-peer support takes many different forms, including professional peer support worker roles, volunteer support groups and in-community responses, but always at its core are relationships of trust based on shared lived experience.
A peer-to-peer initiative for Australia.
Peer-to-peer could become a regular and effective part of social support in Australia if we invest in:
Strengthening the argument: Creating a compelling human, moral, financial and political case for the take-up of peer-to-peer. This work could include commissioning reports from trusted policy brands, commissioning an emotive documentary film and funding for evidence creation including cost-benefit analysis.
Strengthening the champions: Connecting and supporting the peers, practitioners, leaders, policy makers and funders that will make peer-to-peer happen in Australia. This work could include developing a national impact network for peer-to-peer, outreach and lobbying of key influencers and a communications campaign.
Strengthening the examples: Developing the stock of examples of peer-to-peer in practice. This work could include philanthropy and government co-commissioning demonstrations of peer-to-peer in key areas of national challenge and creating an open source library of peer-to-peer practices, platforms and strategies.
The benefits of a peer-to-peer initiative
Investing in mainstreaming peer-to-peer in Australia, and activating the abundant, but latent, support in our communities would lead to:
More people feeling supported through tough times
Self-esteem, purpose, education and employment outcomes for peer mentors
Increased cohesion in our communities
Mitigation of demand on professional services
Reduction in the usage of crisis service
There’s a particularly strong moral and financial case for experimenting with peer-to-peer responses, at scale, in areas of our service system that are over burned, experiencing escalating demand, where there are high cost associated with the lack of support, (e.g usage of crisis services) and there are significant cohorts of people who have developed strategies to get through tough times.
Areas of longstanding national challenges that meet these four criteria and where peer-to-peer could make a significant difference include:
Child protection, including reducing entry into out of home care and exit from care.
Support for parents of children with developmental delays and/or autism
Responding to victims/survivors of FDSV and people who use violence.
Supporting carers
Support for young people at risk of interacting with the justice systems.
Join us and become a partner
After 15 years of championing, developing and learning from peer-to-peer approaches, TACSI has built an extensive network of service providers, commissioners and funders who are leading the field and seeking opportunities to make peer-to-peer happen in their context (local and international).
We’re now looking for philanthropic and government partners to support the broader uptake of peer-to-peer. This is an opportunity to spread an overlooked typology of support, that works at scale, that’s relevant across all sectors of our social system and could help us address areas of significant national challenge.
Why us?
TACSI has been involved in designing, implementing, running and evaluating over 12 peer-to-peer services in Australia, New Zealand, England, Wales and France - working with service providers small and large, philanthropy and state governments.
In 2010, we started working with families to co-design our first peer-to-peer innovation, Family by Family.
In 2023, we wrote a peer-to-peer paper called “The Benefits are Mutual” to create the case for more peer-to-peer responses and collect the best evidence.
Since 2015, we’ve been running training on peer-to-peer, including a unique audio experience developed from interviews with peers, peer mentors and leaders of peer-to-peer initiatives and organisations across Australia.
Now our focus is on mainstreaming peer-to-peer practice in Australia through the creation of an Australian Peer-to-Peer Initiative.
Join us in creating real change