peer group chats

Peer chats are led by trained peer support moderators and provide a free, low-barrier, anonymous and safe way to help young people and adults supporting young people in Australia across areas relating to mental health and work and study.  
With a confidential account, you can see the upcoming chats, join a live chat to talk to the community or read the transcript (the records of live chat conversations) available afterwards. 
They are evidence based and draw upon a peer support model of care that harnesses peer workers’ lived experience of mental-ill health to provide connection, sharing, learning and support.  These chats run between 6.30pm-9.45pm Monday – Thursday each week. 
Professional Led Group Chats run for approximately 1 hour and are hosted by mental health professionals, Work & Study Specialists and members of the headspace Youth National Reference Group (hY NRG) and Family and Friends Reference Group. Topics for these chats vary. And Each month we run approximately three Professional- led group chats. Find out more about the upcoming professionally-led group chats.

Each chat is moderated by a team of young people or adults with lived experience who have been trained to provide peer support and moderation. Young people aged 12-25 can log in and participate or watch along within our Young People chats, and Adults over 25 years old can participate in ‘Adults Supporting young people' chat. We speak about mental health and welcome participants to bring their own topics. 
Our Peer chats usually run between 6.30pm - 9.45pm AEST Monday – Thursday. Each night there is a peer-led chat that covers a particular themes or topic of interest.  
Our general structure works like this: 

• Start of the chat: have a catch up and reflect on our day/week 
• Middle of the chat: talk about topics suggested by the community and work on some activities together 
• Towards the end of the chat: wind down time and setting goals for the week 

Our Peer Moderators are a team of young people and adults from across Australia that have lived experience, or a lived experienced of supporting a young person. They are trained to provide peer support and moderation for our Online Peer Support Group Chats.  

To participate in a group chat you will need to log into your headspace account. You can easily create an account if you don't already have one, you'll just need an email address. 

Find out more about the headspace account.  

Yes, it’s important to understand your responsibilities when entering the group chat space. As this is a community of young people and those that support them, we need to be mindful of what we say and how we say it to ensure it’s a safe and supportive environment for everyone. Read our full guidelines. 

No! You can come into the chat at any point whilst it is live. There is no obligation to stay for a long period of time. Please note, if you request a topic you may not always receive a response straight away depending on how busy the chat is. You can always access the transcript of the chat within your headspace account and to catch up on what you may have missed.   

You can choose and set your public username, which is viewable when you participate in a headspace group chat. It is important that your username does not include any identifying information such as your email address, full name, or location, and it must be appropriate enough for someone as young as 12 years old to view (e.g., it does not include any swear words).  

We kindly ask anyone over the age of 25 to stay within the chats designated for adults supporting young people or family and friends.  

You must be logged into a headspace account to participate within our chats in order to keep our community and team safe. It enables us to follow up with you if you are unsafe, or have expressed something that makes us worry about you. 

No, participation in the peer group chats is completely free. 

Along with other online support options, Online Communities was awarded Accredited for compliance with NSQDMH Standards. Read more about the Standards here.