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The purpose of this paper is to outline what peer support is, covering its history, variations and benefits, then goes on to discuss what the challenges have been to authenticity and what the future holds for peer support.

The authors argue for the necessity of service user leadership in peer support based on both the Service User Involvement Directorate’s (SUID’s) experience and UK-wide learning.

Peer support brings wellbeing and confidence benefits both to the supporter and the supported. However, the lack of understanding of what peer support is, the current climate of austerity and over-professionalisation can threaten the transformational power of genuine peer support.

Peer support is always evolving, and there are areas like the criminal justice service and secure services where more work needs to be done.

Commissioners/funders of mental health services should recognise the value of peer support and its potential for better wellbeing outcomes, while understanding the necessity of service user leadership to maximise its beneficial potential.

The paper looks at peer support at the point in time a decade after the formation of the SUID at Together and four years since the UK mental health strategy No Health Without Mental Health (Department of Health, 2011) and explores the challenges faced at a time when the value of peer support is generally accepted in legislation.

This paper outlines the concept of service user leadership and both describes and reflects on an accredited training programme that enables mental health service users to take a leadership role.

The authors argue for a service user leadership approach and the training programme is reviewed by previous participants

Service users can take on a leadership role if they are given suitable and relevant training and development opportunities. Service user led training can be transformational.

Commissioners of mental health services should consider how to support service user leadership programmes, which can reach places and achieve outcomes that traditional mental health services are unable to attain.

The concept of service user leadership is relatively new and the training programme described in this paper is both original and highly valued by participants with many significant outcomes.

Capital is a user‐led training, consultancy and research organisation based in West Sussex. When the local mental health trust decided to evaluate its assertive outreach team, Capital bid to conduct a qualitative review through one‐to‐one interviews with the team's clients and their carers. In this candid article the project team members describe the process, the hurdles and obstacles they encountered, how they were negotiated or overcome, and what they learned from the experience.

The purpose of this paper is to explore user leadership in peer support practice by reviewing existing evidence and models of delivery, investigating the recently developed term of “authentic” peer support and reflecting on challenges and opportunities for the future.

The paper presents and discusses views and evidence on peer support policy and practice, found in the current literature, grass roots peer support experts’ presentations and contributions to conferences, a national peer support network, key policy documents and the work of Together for Mental Wellbeing.

Peer support benefits are widely documented as is its history, rooted in user leadership. More recently, peer support is acknowledged in a number of key mental health policy documents as seen to be key in the response to current quality and cost agendas. There has been a simultaneous increase of “formal” peer support as practiced by large service providers and a gradual shift away from its “user led” origins. Against the background of the current economic climate and implications for mental health services, there seems to be a need to pause and reflect on current peer support practice and rethink the way forward.

This paper's emphasis on the authenticity of peer support covers new ground in relation to an important topical debate.

Anne Corbett looks back on the achievements of the suffragette girls' schools and makes a plea that we stop classifying children by sex.

Government appointed and sponsored committees of every description—select, ad hoc, advisory, inquiry—such a prominent feature of the public scene since the last War, are understandable, even acceptable, reflect the urgency of the times in which we live. In the gathering gloom of more recent twilight years, they have flourished inordinately, especially in the socio‐political field, where most of their researches have been conducted. Usually embellished with the name of the figure‐head chairman, almost always expensively financed, they have one thing in common—an enormous output of words, telling us much of what we already know. So much of it seems dull, meaningless jargon, reflecting attitudes rather than sound, general principles.

This report has been part of the work of the Survey of Sources for American Studies in the United Kingdom, a research group which was established in October 1956 by the British Association for American Studies aided by a generous grant from the United States Information Service. The Survey decided that it could attempt two things of potential use to teachers of American History and American Literature in this country: firstly, to compile a Guide to manuscripts relating to America in Great Britain and Ireland; and, secondly (the matter of this report), to find out how adequate are the resources of libraries in the United Kingdom to support the teaching of American history and also of American literature in the universities.

In order to succeed in an action under the Equal Pay Act 1970, should the woman and the man be employed by the same employer on like work at the same time or would the woman still be covered by the Act if she were employed on like work in succession to the man? This is the question which had to be solved in Macarthys Ltd v. Smith. Unfortunately it was not. Their Lordships interpreted the relevant section in different ways and since Article 119 of the Treaty of Rome was also subject to different interpretations, the case has been referred to the European Court of Justice.

The most obvious symptom of the most obvious trend in the building of new libraries is the fact that, as yet, no spade has entered the ground of the site on Euston Road, London, upon which the new building for the British Library Reference Division has to be erected. Some twenty years of continued negotiation and discussion finally resulted in the choice of this site. The UK and much more of the world awaits with anticipation what could and should be the major building library of the twentieth century. The planning and design of a library building, however large or small, is, relatively speaking, a major operation, and deserves time, care and patience if the best results are to be produced.