What is a Peer Support Specialist?

Peer Support Specialists (PSS) are individuals with lived experience in mental health and/or recovery. They provide support, advocacy, encouragement, affirmation, acceptance, resources, and hope to consumers. They share their personal experiences of navigating the public mental health and/or recovery systems of care, engaging in treatment and the recovery process. The support they provide helps break down barriers and empower people to find and follow their own recovery paths.

What do Peer Support Specialist do?

Peer Support Specialist has lived experience and is trained and certified to provide help and encouragement for others who are also working their way toward wellness. These specialists may go by different names in different settings. For example, they may be called Certified Recovery Support Specialists, and in the Department of Veterans Affairs, they are referred to as Peer Support Technicians. Regardless of what title they have, Peer Support Specialists all have a common commitment to helping others, working from a strengths-based perspective. Utilizing peers with shared experiences to deliver services is empowering, and research has proven that this approach is a highly effective in program in reaching those in need. If you are interested in learning more about how to become a Peer Support Specialist, or just want to learn more about the profession, just click the contact button below.

What does the Peer Support Training include?

While in training, participants will engage with an online curriculum covering the importance of peer support, ethics, confidentiality, crisis management, suicide prevention, recovery planning, case management, triage, technical job skills, and self-care. Participants have to be at least 18 years of age and can complete a 40 hour hybrid training (online/in person).

If you are interested in learning more about Peer Support, please click the link below to join our 90 minute introductory training in August 2023.