Peer Support Specialist

Work, Serve, Thrive. With the City of Durham

Advance in your career while making a real difference in the community you serve.

Hiring Range: $53,272-$64,766 Annually

Schedule:

Monday-Friday 9am-5pm. Full-time with benefits, 40 hours per week.

In 2022, the Durham Community Safety Department (DCSD) launched four 911 crisis response programs—collectively known as HEART (Holistic Empathetic Assistance Response Teams). Please visit our website and dashboard, watch this CNN clip, listen to this NPR segment, or read this piece from The Assembly. In 2025, DCSD has added a new division focused on Stabilization Services. This expansion represents an exciting new phase in DCSD’s development—and a thrilling opportunity to pair alternative response programs with stabilization services that can better support Neighbors.

The start date for this position will be October 5th, 2026

DCSD recruits Certified Peer Support Specialists for our Care Navigation, Familiar Neighbors and Community Response Teams. DCSD recognizes lived experience as an important form of expertise that helps better position our teams to provide compassionate care. The Peer Support Specialist is a full-time, benefits-eligible position that provides person-centered case management and peer support to individuals engaged with the Care Navigation Team.

Drawing upon lived experience, this role builds trusting relationships with neighbors, helps identify individual needs and goals, and connects individuals to appropriate community resources and services, including behavioral health care, housing, healthcare, benefits, and other supportive services. The Peer Support Specialist provides ongoing follow-up, advocacy, and resource navigation while maintaining accurate and timely documentation and coordinating with clinicians, community partners, and other service providers.

This role supports a trauma-informed, strengths based, and equitable approach that promotes individual choice, self-determination, and meaningful connection to care.

Familiar Neighbors is a part of our Stabilization Services support for neighbors navigating housing insecurity, reentry after incarceration, behavioral health needs, and other complex life challenges—connecting them to resources and longer-term support. DCSD also leads Durham’s Continuum of Care (CoC) and coordinates local homeless services to prevent and end homelessness through collaboration, service alignment, and strategic investment. Familiar Neighbors aims to connect to resources and build relationships with neighbors experiencing frequent emergency service, justice involvement, and/or serious mental illness.

The Community Response Team sends multi-person teams— that may include a Clinician (Team Lead), Peer Support Specialist, and/or an EMT. These teams respond to 911 calls involving behavioral health and quality of life related concerns. CRT responds in-person, without law enforcement and our data has shown a safety rating for over 99 percent of calls. Peer Support Specialists regularly engage with Neighbors by providing input on community resources, interventions, and support through the lens of their previous lived experience.

• Respond to referrals involving mental health, substance use, housing instability, and other psychosocial needs using trauma-informed, person-centered strategies informed by lived experience.
• Provide case management or crisis support, resource navigation, and advocacy to identify goals, address barriers, and connect neighbors with appropriate community services and supports.
• Coordinate warm handoffs and ongoing follow-up with clinicians, DCSD teams, community partners, and service providers to promote continuity of care.
• Build…