Peer support as a strategy for the recovery and experience of harm reducers of the belo horizonte public health network Suporte de pares como estratégia de Recovery e a experiência dos redutores de danos da Rede Pública de Saúde Mental de Belo Horizonte

Abstract

Recovery is a concept that emerged in the 1970s to designate the process in which people who experience a mental health problem become able to manage such an experience in a way that makes it possible for them to have a meaningful life, with a positive sense of belonging to the community. One of the recovery strategies is peer support, which consists of the interaction - with a focus on providing support - between people who live with mental health conditions and other people who go through similar situations. Although the hiring of peer supporters in Brazil is still incipient, it is argued in this article that the experience of harm reduction, at least in the way it is configured in the public mental health network in Belo Horizonte, consists of a Brazilian model close to the one represented by peer support in other countries. Therefore, the present study aimed to report the experience of three damage reducers in Belo Horizonte, to ascertain the potential of damage reduction as a recovery strategy.