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Rob Prior, founder of Sidekick Initiative.
Meet Rob

Rob Prior.
Lived-experience mental health advocate.

Founder of Sidekick Initiative. Portsmouth-based. Blunt when it needs to be blunt, human all the way through.

Rob's route into this work started with a life that broke and got rebuilt. Lived experience of prison, years of mental health struggle, PTSD and CPTSD, trauma, and the long, unglamorous work of rebuilding.

He has worked on the frontline of recovery services as a peer mentor, and has trained across education, mentoring, fitness, coaching and public speaking. Sidekick is what that experience turned into: a way of showing up for other people the way he once needed someone to show up for him.

Rob is a lived-experience mental-health advocate and a trained recovery mentor. He is not a clinician and he is not a therapist. He works alongside them, doing the bit they cannot always do: showing up as someone who has been there.

The framework that runs through everything Rob delivers is the Sidekick Operational System: Aim, Intention, Method.

Rob also runs his own endurance, speaking and mentoring work under his personal brand. Find that at RobPriorUK.com. Sidekick Initiative is the community organisation; RobPriorUK is Rob's individual commercial work.

Roles and experience

The work, honestly listed.

Founder of Sidekick Initiative
Qualified teacher and educator
NVQ Level 3 Personal Trainer
Lived-experience mental health advocate and recovery mentor
Life coach
Speaker and community facilitator
Former prison peer mentor
Education and neurodiversity mentoring
Qualifications and training

Formal training that backs up the lived experience.

Academic and education

  • Access to Higher Education Diploma, Level 3 (Sociology, Psychology, Educational Studies, History)
  • TQUK Level 3 Award in Education & Training (RQF)
  • Functional Skills English Level 2
  • Functional Skills Mathematics Level 2

Health, fitness and wellbeing

  • NVQ Level 3 Personal Trainer
  • Mental Health First Aid
  • Safeguarding Training
  • Boundaries, Ethics & Values
  • Drug Awareness
  • Culture of Addiction & Recovery
  • Reducing Parental Conflict Awareness

Mentoring and community support

  • Open University Mentoring Pathway
  • Level 1 Mentoring Qualification
  • Level 2 Mentoring Qualification
  • CGL Peer Mentor Training
  • Prison Peer Mentor Passport
  • Recovery Ambassador Training, Recovery Connections
  • Asset Based Community Development

Coaching and professional development

  • Life Coaching
  • NLP Training
  • Public Speaking & Presentation Skills
  • Group Facilitation
  • Coaching & Communication Skills
  • Speaker Development