PEER SUPPORT SPECIALIST
About The Position
Peer Support Specialists provide peer-delivered, trauma-informed, non-clinical services focused on behavioral health rehabilitation and recovery. The role helps individuals and families build skills to cope with and manage behavioral health symptoms, use natural and community resources, and strengthen recovery-oriented principles such as hope, self-efficacy, and community living skills. Services are guided by individualized service plans and tailored to participants’ goals, with the aim of initiating or maintaining recovery and enhancing personal and family quality of life over the long term. Services may be provided individually or in combination according to the care or service plan. They include advocacy and assistance with benefits, entitlements, housing, shared decision-making, system navigation, and self-directed services; outreach and engagement, including recovery-oriented companionship and post-discharge support; help choosing and using self-help and recovery tools; peer recovery supports and counseling; transitional support between institutions, homes, and community services; and non-clinical pre-crisis and crisis support. The position requires frequent travel throughout the North Country Region. The workweek schedule is determined by the supervisor to meet location and departmental needs, and hours and schedules may vary based on company needs and workload.
Requirements
- High school diploma or equivalent.
- Lived or relevant experience.
- Clean driving record for 3 years.
- Must maintain certification requirements.
- Competencies: communication, organization, crisis management/composure, time management, confidentiality, and ethical conduct.
Responsibilities
- Assist individuals in seeking and obtaining benefits, entitlements, food, shelter, and permanent housing.
- Support shared decision-making, benefits planning, development of psychiatric advance directives, and advocacy for self-directed services.
- Help individuals navigate behavioral health and allied human services systems and link them with appropriate care.
- Provide recovery-oriented companionship and model participation in recovery activities.
- Raise awareness of available services and recovery pathways, and help remove barriers to access.
- Provide interim visits following discharge from emergency rooms, detox units, or inpatient psychiatric units to support community tenure and readiness for follow-up care.
- Assist individuals in selecting and using self-directed recovery tools, including relapse-prevention planning.
- Help individuals identify meaningful activities, address barriers to participation, connect with natural supports, warm lines, and community self-help groups.
- Provide recovery education, counseling, one-to-one peer support, and person-centered goal planning.
- Support skills development, learning and practicing new skills, self-monitoring of progress, and modeling effective coping skills.
- Provide transitional support between jail or prison, institutions, hospitals, homes, and the community, as applicable.
- Coordinate transition arrangements, including appointments and contact information, with individuals, families, and significant others before planned discharge; document arrangements in case records.
- Support warm hand-offs between bedded services and subsequent services where possible.
- Provide non-clinical companionship and peer support before or during crisis situations, including in emergency rooms, crisis units, homes, or the community.
- Develop crisis-diversion and relapse-prevention plans.
- Travel frequently throughout the North Country Region.
- Maintain required certification.
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Entry Level
Education Level
High school or GED
