About PEER Support

PEER Support’s mission is quite simple: if invited, to offer free and high quality support to anyone trying to start or grow an enterprise of any sort in Rossendale.

Local people from all walks of life established PEER Support in September 2003 so that we could play our part in making Rossendale a better place to live and work. We have done this by giving guidance and support to anyone wanting help to start or grow a business in the valley. Our service is free, open ended, completely confidential and entirely responsive to need. The service is managed by volunteers.

Our service is delivered through a group of trained volunteer mentors. We use our contacts, knowledge and experience to support client businesses. This equates to around 1000 volunteer hours every year.

Our approach to supporting local enterprise remains common sense and logical:

• Clients find us through our local networks or by referral.
• The client always remains in control of the relationship and their idea.
• We seek to understand the unique needs of each client.
• We then mobilise community resources to help meet those needs.
• Any achievement is the client’s, not ours.

The main strengths of PEER Support for Rossendale are:

• Trust: comes from being thoroughly networked into the community at all levels and highly visible, even though we do not promote the service.
• Guiding not leading: our mentors are there to support the enterprising person with their project, but not to do it all, take charge or create a sense of dependency.
• PEER network: our mentors are backed up with literally hundreds of years of experience in many different facets of business and community activity.

Since 2003, PEER Support has played a key role in connecting Rossendale people with enterprising ideas and dreams to those who can help make them a reality. As a result over 170 new businesses, including 40 social enterprises are now trading in Rossendale and around 100 existing business clients have been guided through successful change activities.

Sometimes we have recognised a broader issue that has been raised by a number of clients. When this happens we respond to the challenge and establish new initiatives that meet the need. Examples of this include the Adrenaline Gateway, REAL and Valley at Work.