Refugee Peer Helpers Turn Lived Experience Into Support for Fellow Refugees

Refugee peer helpers delivering Problem Management Plus draw on their own experiences of migration, political oppression and gendered adversity to understand, respect and guide the people they support, according to a qualitative study published in BMC Psychology. The research, by Mathea Homme, Per-Einar Binder, Ingrid Dundas and Gro Mjeldheim Sandal, explored how helpers interpret their past struggles and how those interpretations shape their work with newly arrived refugees and asylum seekers. Emerging evidence suggests that peer support can benefit refugees, but little has been known about how peer helpers with refugee backgrounds actually use and interpret their lived experience in their helping role.

The Norwegian study set out to answer whether, and how, that personal history enters the helping relationship when helpers conduct Problem Management Plus, abbreviated PM+, with fellow refugees. The team interviewed eight PM+ helpers, seven women and one man, working at two Norwegian health care centers for newly arrived refugees and asylum seekers. The researchers then applied reflexive thematic analysis, examining how helpers ascribed meaning to their major life events and how those meanings influenced their role as peer helpers.

The analysis produced three major themes. The first was drawing on post-migration struggles to understand and guide clients. Helpers who had themselves navigated resettlement could translate that experience into instrumental skills, including strategies for coping with the challenges of building a new life, offering clients guidance grounded in firsthand knowledge.

The second theme concerned political oppression. Helpers who had endured political repression described enacting what the authors call an ethic of equal respect with clients, a stance that shaped the tone of their helping relationships. The third theme involved gendered adversity.

Helpers described drawing on experiences of hardship tied to gender to recognize the specific vulnerabilities of female clients and to protect them within the helping relationship. Across all three themes, the researchers observed a common pattern: the transformation of personal struggle into professional strength. The helpers had not merely accumulated instrumental skills, such as concrete strategies for managing resettlement challenges.

They had also integrated their experiences of adversity into their identities, in the form of convictions and values that ultimately benefited their clients. The authors conclude that this integration of adverse experiences into the helpers' understanding of themselves and others enabled them to respect, understand and guide the refugees they serve. The narratives suggested that the helpers had woven hardship into both practical wisdom and the convictions and values that informed their stance toward clients.

The study is qualitative and based on a small sample of eight helpers at two Norwegian centers, so its findings describe these particular narratives rather than establishing general effects of peer-delivered PM+. The interviews were conducted with helpers, not clients, meaning the link between helpers' self-understanding and client outcomes remains to be tested. Even so, the work offers a rare window into the inner workings of peer support for refugees, suggesting that helpers with refugee backgrounds may draw on a resource that is both practical and deeply personal.

Subject of Research: How refugee peer helpers use lived migration experience in delivering Problem Management Plus

Article Title: How peer refugee helpers draw on their lived experience in problem management plus: a qualitative study

Article References: Homme, M., Binder, P.-E., Dundas, I., & Sandal, G. M. (2026). How peer refugee helpers draw on their lived experience in problem management plus: a qualitative study. BMC Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-026-05408-2

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1186/s40359-026-05408-2

Keywords: refugees, peer support, Problem Management Plus, qualitative study, mental health, asylum seekers, lived experience, thematic analysis, Norway, resettlement, peer, refugee