Peer Support Specialist

Reports To:

Qualified Professional

Peer Support must be delivered by individuals who have the life experience of being diagnosed with a serious mental illness or substance use disorder and must be North Carolina Certified Peer Support Specialists who:

a) Self identify as an individual with life experience of being diagnosed with a serious mental illness or substance use disorder which meets Federal Definitions; and

b) Are well established in their own recovery 2; and

c) Are currently in recovery and are stable and

d) Have a high school diploma or GED equivalency,

e) MUST HAVE CURRENT Peer Support Specialist certification and;

e) Are supervised by a Qualified Professional (QP), and

f) Are not a family member of the individual who receives peer support services.

The CPSS provides structured, scheduled services that promote recovery, self-determination, self-advocacy, engagement in self-care and wellness and enhancement of community living skills of beneficiaries. PSS services are directly provided by Certified Peer Support Specialists (CPSS) who have self-identified as a person(s) in recovery from a mental health or substance use disorder. PSS can be provided in combination with other approved mental health or substance use services or as an independent service.

The CPSS supports local care management efforts through a combination of activities with various public and private agencies, development of processes and agreements to address critical community needs of members, and fostering relationships and promotes whole person, integrated care by planning, coordinating, tracking, and monitoring care to members to achieve the key goals of the person centered plan.

Knowledge of peer support principles, values, and ethics.

Ability to share lived experience to support, encourage and enhance a beneficiary’s treatment and recovery.

Possess recovery-oriented skills and knowledge to provide peer support services.

Ability to collaborate with the program QP to assess their own strengths and areas of growth and develop a supervision plan.

Ability to collaborate with a beneficiary to explore and identify barriers to accessing community resources or treatment providers.

Ability to model and mentor recovery values, attitudes, beliefs, and personal actions to encourage wellness and resilience for beneficiaries served and to promote a recovery environment in the community, residence, and workplace.

Ability to explore with a beneficiary served, the importance and creation of a wellness identity through open sharing and challenging viewpoints.

Ability to promote a beneficiary’s opportunity for personal growth by identifying teachable moments for building relationship skills to empower the beneficiary and enhance personal responsibility.

Ability to model and share decisions-making tools to enhance a beneficiary’s healthy decision-making process.

Ability to provide examples of healthy social interactions and facilitate familiarity with, and connection to, the local community.

Ability to recognize and appropriately respond to conditions that constitute an emergency to include both physical and behavioral health crisis utilizing the emergency response procedure of employer.

Ability to provide support to the beneficiary in navigating systems (medical, social services, or legal).

Ability to promote self-advocacy by facilitating each beneficiary’s learning about his or her human and legal rights and supporting the beneficiary while exercising those rights to support the empowerment of the beneficiary.

Attend all required meetings related to care planning and provider engagement

In conjunction with the care management team, engage in various skill-building activities such as learning how to obtain and maintain stable housing, manage finances, increase employment readiness skills, interact with others in private and public settings, maintain healthy non-violent relationships, engage in safe, non-medical ways to control modifiable risk factors that impact his or her health (e.g. smoking, drug and alcohol use, obesity,…