PEER SUPPORT SPECIALIST
About The Position
Peer Support services are peer-delivered, rehabilitation- and recovery-focused services. They promote skills for coping with and managing behavioral health symptoms, help people use natural resources, and support recovery-oriented principles such as hope, self-efficacy, and community living skills. The role provides trauma-informed, non-clinical assistance to support long-term recovery from behavioral health disorders. Services must be intended to achieve goals in the participant’s individualized service plan, tailored flexibly to the participant or family and making use of community and natural supports. The work helps individuals and families initiate and maintain recovery and enhance personal and family life over the long term. Services may include advocacy; outreach and engagement; self-help tools; peer recovery supports and counseling; transitional supports; and pre-crisis and crisis support. Work may involve assisting with benefits and housing, navigating behavioral health and human services, connecting people with recovery activities and community supports, planning for transitions between services, and providing non-clinical companionship and support during or before a crisis. This position is based at 1003 Park in Ogdensburg, New York, and covers the North Country Region. Travel is frequent. The supervisor determines the schedule according to location and departmental needs; hours may vary with company needs and workload, and employees will receive as much advance notice of changes as possible. The posting identifies the role as full-time and also describes it as a part-time/full-time position.
Requirements
- High school diploma or equivalent.
- Lived or relevant experience.
- Clean driving record for three years.
- Must maintain certification requirements.
- Competencies in communication, organization, crisis management/composure, time management, confidentiality, and ethical conduct.
- Frequent travel within the North Country Region.
Responsibilities
- Assist individuals with seeking and obtaining benefits and entitlements, food, shelter, and permanent housing.
- Help recipients participate in shared decision-making and advocate for self-directed services.
- Use Peer Bridgers to help people connect with and navigate behavioral health and allied human services systems.
- Provide benefits advisement and planning, and assist with developing psychiatric advance directives.
- Provide companionship and model a recovery lifestyle, including participation in recovery activities and wellness activities.
- Raise awareness of available services and recovery pathways and help individuals remove access barriers.
- Provide interim visits after discharge from hospital emergency rooms, detox units, or inpatient psychiatric units to support community tenure and readiness while individuals await follow-up care.
- Provide face-to-face outreach to increase motivation to participate in clinically indicated chemical-dependence treatment for eligible individuals and families.
- Assist with selecting and using self-directed recovery tools, including relapse-prevention planning.
- Help individuals identify meaningful activities, address barriers to participation, connect with natural supports, and access warm lines and community self-help groups.
- Provide recovery education, counseling, one-to-one peer support, and person-centered goal planning.
- Assist with skills development, learning and practicing new skills, self-monitoring progress, and modeling effective coping skills.
- Provide transitional support between jail or prison, institutions, hospitals, individuals’ homes, and the community, as applicable.
- Coordinate appropriate services before planned discharge, discuss and arrange appointments and contact details with individuals and relevant supports, and document arrangements in the case record.
- Consider a warm hand-off or peer service when an individual or family transitions from a bedded service to another service, where possible.
- Provide non-clinical companionship and peer support in emergency rooms, crisis units, homes, or the community before or during a crisis or relapse.
- Develop crisis-diversion plans or relapse-prevention plans.
- Maintain required certification requirements and a clean driving record.
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Entry Level
Education Level
High school or GED
