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In this episode of Shoulder to Shoulder, Cate meets Duncan, who works at Capital in West Sussex, a long-standing, lived-experience-led organisation that has spent nearly 30 years championing peer support, shaping services, and ensuring people’s voices are heard.

Duncan brings his own lived experience to the work, having come through psychotic depression and support that, in his words, felt patronising and disconnected from what he actually needed. That experience helped shape a career spent trying to do things differently.

In this conversation, he reflects on the value of independent peer support, why lived experience-led organisations matter, and what happens when the services people rely on are suddenly pushed to the brink. With Capital facing devastating funding cuts, this episode becomes not just a conversation about peer support, but about what is lost when systems stop listening to the very people they claim to serve.

In this episode, we explore:

✔️ How lived experience shaped Duncan’s path into mental health work

✔️ Why independent peer support offers something different from statutory services

✔️ The role Capital has played in West Sussex for nearly three decades

✔️ What happens when lived experience-led organisations are pushed aside by commissioning decisions

✔️ Why peer support is so often valued by people in crisis, yet still treated as expendable

✔️ The real human cost of funding cuts on staff, services and recovery

Find out more about Capital:

https://www.capitalimpactsolutions.co.uk/
https://www.capitalcharity.org/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/duncanjmarshall969/

Listen now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

With-you consultancy: www.with-you.co.uk