ID: HR19-582
Presenting author: Maria João Oliveira
Maria João Oliveira, Ximene Rego
Since there isn’t a single and consensual definition about the peers’ role in health education projects at national and international levels, their tasks within the professional team and their professional contract can vary (technicians, collaborators, volunteers).
This variability – which can be perceived as one of the advantages of this strategy, namely in less structured contexts, where peers act as collaborators or volunteers – seems to contribute to the frailty of those who work as professionals in technical teams, namely concerning their acknowledgment as ‘specialists’ among other specialists.
In order to deepen the understanding of the challenges to peers’ professionalization, we resorted to the case study approach at a Portuguese NGO (APDES), where peers work with hard-to-reach populations (people who use drugs, sex workers and inmates) and target-groups with specific characteristics, like teenagers.
The provisional results show that the organisation and the teams tend to define the peers’ role (regardless of their contract or position) in line with the peers themselves, rather than according to the technical staff – even when the peers are professionals.
On the other hand, teams tacitly assume (and sometimes practice) a modus operandi where the peers’ tasks are carried out by other professionals (even if less effectively and/or efficiently). Hence, peers’ influence is not irreplaceable, contrary to the contribution by nurses, psychologists or social workers.
Provisional inferences emphasise the contribution of the dynamics established within the teams to the peers’ unspecialised role, which poses a challenge to their professionalization. Occasionally, this happens unintentionally or unconsciously way – even when acknowledging the peers’ specific competences and advocating the importance of their contribution.