Evaluation of Epilepsy Smart Australia Peer Support Pilot Program
Status: Completed June 2025
Client: Epilepsy Australia (https://epilepsysmart.org.au/)
Background
In 2022, the Epilepsy Smart Australia Program (ESAP) established the Peer Support Program to enhance wellbeing and social connection for people living with or impacted by epilepsy. The program consists of peer-led sharing, information and emotional support through a network of community-based peer groups facilitated by people with lived experience who are provided with training and support.
Beacon Strategies was engaged by ESAP to undertake an external evaluation of the pilot program to measure the outcomes that were emerging and help to develop a national evidence-based model for the future.
Approach
The evaluation followed a theory-driven, mixed-methods approach that assessed the extent to which relevant program outcomes were achieved, including the experiences and outcomes for participants, experiences and outcomes for the Peer Support Facilitators, and overall implementation approach. We collected and analysed program activity data, survey data from participants, reflections and feedback from Peer Support Facilitators, program documentation, and insights from program staff through focus groups.
Outcome
We provided quarterly data snapshots to ESAP throughout implementation of the pilot to help track progress and identify learnings along the way. We delivered our final evaluation to ESAP in mid-2024, which outlined several key findings and implications to inform the future delivery of the program.
These included identifying meaningful outcomes reported by participants and continuing to align the program with peer work principles. The evaluation has since supported ESAP to gain additional funding that will build on the outcomes from the initial pilot and expand the reach of the program for two more years.
Link to our vision of ‘a more impactful social purpose sector’
This project supports our vision of a more impactful social purpose sector by building evidence for peer-led models of support for people living with chronic health conditions, which reflects the value we place on experience-based knowledge in health and human services. By providing good evidence, this has contributed to making these models more available to people living with epilepsy in future.
We support organisations to evaluate peer-led programs and explore new models of care grounded in lived experience.
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