Peer Support Lesson Learnt

Volunteer Ambulance Officer and Peer Supporter with the Western Australian Ambulance Service shares the following experience with us.

I learnt a valuable lesson recently and would like to share it with you. An ambulance crew attended a SIDS. The emotions at the scene were very intense as you can imagine. The crew in question are partners who live together.

I became aware of this call a couple of days after the event while reading through the case notes. I approached the male partner, as a peer supporter, and enquired how he and his partner were coping.

He replied that he and his partner were "ok" and were not having any problems. I said they were welcome to call me if any problems came up, and left it at that.

A week later I was informed by another colleague that the female partner was having some coping problems, which included crying, and bouts of anger. When I phoned her, she was very willing to chat and discuss the stress she experienced with me. She mentioned she was feeling a lot of anger towards her partner.

During the course of our conversation, she said that I should not have taken it for granted there were no problems when her partner said they were both ok. Some of the anger she was experiencing was towards her partner for assuming she was ok.

The lesson I learnt from this experience was not to assume or take for granted that one person's view of how someone else is coping is correct or accurate. Low-key follow-up is a useful practice.