Recovery-Focused Resources
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- Peer Support Overview
- Peer Support Language
- Implementation Approaches, Research & Best Practices
- Implementation Tips & Tools
- Data Collection & Assessment
- About Staff Wellness & Professional Use of Self
- Staff Wellness Tips & Tools
- Tips & Tools on Professional Use of Self
- Peer Services Implementation
- Peer Supporter Supervision
- Recidivism & Recovery
- Additional Resources
Peer Support Overview
What Are Peer Recovery Support Services?
This manual, authored by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), explains peer recovery support services designed and delivered by people in recovery from substance use disorders.
Peer Support Workers for those in Recovery
Peer support workers are people who have been successful in the recovery process who help others experiencing similar situations. Through shared understanding, respect, and mutual empowerment, peer support workers help people become and stay engaged in the recovery process and reduce the likelihood of relapse. Peer support services can effectively extend the reach of treatment beyond the clinical setting into the everyday environment of those seeking a successful, sustained recovery process.
The Bazelon Report discusses the benefits of peer support in crisis services and endorses peer-led and peer-involved mental health crisis supports because they are what people with lived or living experience with a mental health challenge or disability want and need. They are effective at helping individuals achieve good outcomes, and they are cost-effective.
These documents provide information about Peer Specialists in crisis settings, including general competencies for Peer Specialists in crisis work, Peer Run Warmlines, Peer Navigation, Crisis Respite programs, Mobile Crisis Units, and Crisis Stabilization Units. Subject Matter Experts were consulted on this project and are referenced within each document in quotes as well as recognized as contributors. The content provided in these documents is not exhaustive. Contributors provided expertise; their contribution does not imply endorsement nor does it imply opposition to the document.
Issue Brief: Expanding Peer Support and Supporting the Peer Workforce in Mental Health
This issue brief offers valuable information to State Mental Health Authorities (SMHA) about the benefits of peer support and inclusion of the peer workforce throughout the behavioral health continuum. The document highlights current standards and best practices for including peer support workers as an essential component of services delivery for mental and co-occurring disorders, like substance use disorder (SUD).
Peer Support Roles Across the Sequential Intercept Model
Graphic representation of peer support roles across five intercept models, including examples for each.
Peer Support Language
Recovery-Oriented Language Guide: Words Matter
The Mental Health Coordinating Council developed the first Recovery Oriented Language Guide in 2013 because language matters. The Guide continues to be important in the context of mental health, where words can convey hope, optimism and support, and promote a culture that fosters recovery and wellbeing. The Recovery Oriented Language Guide is recognized as a valuable resource widely used across mental health and human services in Australia and overseas. This edition includes updates to reflect contemporary language use, introduces diversity inclusive language and incorporates new topics, including talking about grief and loss, and recovery language usage in the written word.
Important Language Considerations in Developing Person-Centered Plans
Despite the fact that the process behind a recovery plan may be largely recovery-oriented, the translation of this process into the actual language of the planning document itself continues to be a core challenge of all providers who are committed to creating person-centered plans. This document includes overarching guidelines that should be considered regarding language that is incorporated in both written documents and verbal interactions.
Implementation Approaches, Research & Best Practices
Principles-Focused Evaluation: The Guide (book by Michael Quinn Patton)
Michael Quinn Patton is one of the most influential voices in the field of program evaluation. In Principles-Focused Evaluation, Patton explains why principles matter for program development and evaluation and how they can serve as a rudder to navigate the uncertainties, turbulence, and emergent challenges of complex dynamic environments, making it well-suited for recovery-oriented change initiatives.
The Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR)
The CFIR provides a menu of constructs that have been associated with effective implementation. It reflects the state-of-the-science at the time of its development in 2009; including constructs from, for example, Everett Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovations Theory and Greenhalgh and colleagues’ significant compilation of constructs based on their review of 500 published sources across 13 scientific disciplines. In addition to these two sources, the CFIR incorporates 18 other sources. The CFIR considered the spectrum of construct terminology and definitions and compiled them into one organizing framework.
The National Implementation Research Network (NIRN)
The National Implementation Research Network team wants to incorporate the thoughts, perspectives, and real-life experiences of those who work within implementation science into resources that support the Implementation Support Practitioner Core Competencies. To that end, NIRN is providing a unique opportunity for the implementation science community to come together and participate in the alignment of the implementation support practitioner core competencies to activities within the Implementation Stages.
Engaging People Who Receive Services: A Best Practice Guide
This guide assists human service systems to fully and effectively include people who receive services in system planning and improvement efforts. It is relevant for all systems that support older adults and people with disabilities. This guide was originally developed as part of technical assistance activities through the National Center on Advancing Person-Centered Practices and Systems (NCAPPS).
Implementation Tips & Tools
Implementation Toolkit for Person Centered Recovery Planning in Self-Directed Care
This toolkit is a resource to organizations implementing PCRP and builds on earlier work by researchers at the University of Texas at Austin’s Texas Institute for Excellence in Mental Health. It uses the CFIR five domains (PCRP characteristics, organization characteristics, external factors, characteristics of individuals, and implementation process) to present implementation and assessment tools, resources, and activities.
Strategic Project Planning Template
In the most recent iteration of the Recovery Institute’s Collaborative for Recovery Focused Change, Project Manager Darcy Kues led our learning community through a strategic planning session during our Opening Gathering in February of 2024. During this session, Darcy introduced fundamental considerations for strategic project planning and offered a basic structure for moving from “the big picture” to smaller actionable items. Participants worked with their teams to discuss initial questions that uncovered information that was critical to building an informed but flexible project plan.
Liberating Structures (LS) Facilitation Methods
Leaders and implementers can understand where they want the organization to end up (i.e. practices being implemented) and be aware of how the organization is currently performing, but bringing about change requires facilitation skills and methods. Via Hope has found the Liberating Structures set of facilitation methods to be useful to engage groups of any size for any type of meeting or event (e.g. training, planning sessions, consultation). The 33+ LS tools provide options for group participation and collaborative planning that go beyond typical methods (i.e., presentations, brainstorming sessions, open discussion) and operationalize principles of facilitation that are closely aligned with person-centered practices.
Data Collection & Assessment
Organizational Readiness to Change Assessment (ORCA)
The ORCA was developed by the Veterans Health Administration and designed to assess organizational readiness to change in preparation for testing interventions designed to implement evidence-based changes in clinical practice. The scales are intended for diagnostic use, to identify needs or conditions that can be targeted by implementation activities or resources, and to provide a prognosis of the success of the change effort at the organizational level.
Developed by the Yale Program for Recovery and Community Health, the Recovery Self-Assessment (RSA) is a 36-item measure designed to gauge the degree to which programs implement recovery-oriented practices. It is a self-reflective tool designed to identify strengths and target areas of improvement as agencies and systems strive to offer recovery-oriented care. The RSA contains concrete, operational items to help program staff, persons in recovery, and significant others to identify practices in their mental health and addiction agency that facilitate or impede recovery. There are four versions of the RSA targeted to different groups.
About Staff Wellness & Professional Use of Self
Trauma Stewardship: An Everyday Guide to Caring for Self While Caring for Others (book by Laura van Dernoot Lipsky & Connie Burk)
A longtime trauma worker, Laura van Dernoot Lipsky offers a deep and empathetic survey of the often-unrecognized toll taken on those working to make the world a better place. We may feel tired, cynical, or numb or like we can never do enough. These, and other symptoms, affect us individually and collectively, sapping the energy and effectiveness we so desperately need if we are to benefit humankind, other living things, and the planet itself. In Trauma Stewardship, we are called to meet these challenges in an intentional way—to keep from becoming overwhelmed by developing a quality of mindful presence. Joining the wisdom of ancient cultural traditions with modern psychological research, Lipsky offers a variety of simple and profound practices that will allow us to remake ourselves—and ultimately the world.
TEND is an organization that provides education and resources to helping professions, leadership, and agencies to help them stay healthy, effective and engaged while doing challenging work. Their website includes virtual learning opportunities and on-demand courses.
“Beyond the Cliff” (video with Laura van Dernoot Lipsky)
In this TEDx talk, Laura offers a window into the cumulative toll that can occur when helping professionals are exposed to the suffering, hardship, crisis, or trauma of others.
Staff Wellness Tips & Tools
A strategy to safely and kindly guide someone through a negative stress reaction following a traumatic incident, by Patricia Fisher at TEND.
Four steps to protect you from being “slimed,” and to help ensure you don’t traumatize your colleagues, friends and family.
Tips & Tools on Professional Use of Self
Cheat Sheet for Self-Disclosure in Therapy
Key guidelines by Janine Roberts about self-disclosure for mental health professionals.
Guide for Sharing Lived Experience
Lived experience is a term for the expertise and insight into a condition or issue possessed by someone who has at some point experienced that condition or issue themselves. People with lived experiences of mental health or substance use issues are often referred to as peers, and people that have attempted suicide are often referred to as survivors. This guide includes benefits of sharing lived experience, including reducing stigma and inspiring hope and community.
Peer Services Implementation
Peer Workers in the Behavioral & Integrated Health Workforce: Opportunities & Future Directions
This article describes the experiences that organizations and their workforce, including peer workers, encounter as they integrate peer support services into the array of behavioral health services. Specific attention is given to the similarities and differences of services provided by peers in mental health settings and substance use settings, and implications for future directions. The authors also address the role of peer workers in integrated behavioral and physical healthcare services. This article was authored by Cheryl Gagne, Wanda Finch, Keris Myrick, and Livia Davis and published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine in 2018.
Enhancing the Peer Provider Workforce: Recruitment, Supervision & Retention
This toolkit by the National Association of Consumer/Survivors Mental Health Administrators is designed to guide community providers and state hospital administrators to integrate peer providers into their recovery-oriented services, or to expand them. It emphasizes recruiting and hiring, as well as supervision and retention. This toolkit also includes a list of resources.
Peer Supporter Supervision
National Practice Guidelines for Peer Specialists & Supervisors (NPG-S)
The original National Practice Guidelines for Peer Supporters (NPG) identified 12 core values of peer support including a short description of each value in practice. This revised version by the National Association of Peer Supporters (N.A.P.S.) provides added guidelines for supervisors about the core peer support values as applied in supervisory relationships, including a description of the supervisor’s role and practical tips to help peer support specialists remain true to the values outlined in the original NPG. The NPG-S may be used as a self-assessment for supervisors to improve the supervision experience, or to educate management and executive leadership about the values of peer support and to advocate for increased promotion of these values in practice.
A Guide to Supervising & Developing Young Adult Peer Mentors
This guidebook by Vanessa V. Klodnick is a practical organizational self-assessment tool to improve an agency’s young adult peer mentoring (YAPM) implementation. It can be used to assess an agency’s implementation needs and connect to easily accessible free resources. This guide is most beneficial to supervisors of young adult peer mentors, but may be valuable to others (e.g., young adult peers, provider administrators, family partners, supervisors of adult peer and non-peer staff).
Recidivism & Recovery
From Recidivism to Recovery: The Case for Peer Support in Texas Correctional Facilities
In this paper, the authors explore the use of mental health peer support services as one way to support recovery, improve continuity of care, and reduce recidivism for inmates with mental illness during the re-entry process. The paper discusses a successful peer support re-entry program model, established in Pennsylvania, and offers preliminary suggestions for a Texas pilot project. They also offer policy recommendations that, if implemented, would broadly improve access to mental health services, ease re-entry transitions for inmates with mental illness, and enhance the viability of peer support re-entry programming.
Second Chance Worker Reentry Initiative
Helpful links from Workforce Solutions on fidelity bonding, work opportunity tax credit, information regarding background checks, and more.
List of Felon Friendly Employers (Companies that hire felons)
This list serves as a starting point for felons and ex-convicts in finding a job after leaving prison. Please check the employer websites, do the research, and follow the application processes as requested.
Additional Resources
CCHBCs
Meaningful Representation of Lived and Living Experience in Governance
The Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics (CCBHCs) are required to ensure meaningful representation of people with lived or living experience of mental health and substance use challenges and their family members in governance and program implementation. This toolkit dives into the CCBHC Certification Criteria 6.B: Governance, and outlines an overview of CCBHC requirements, considerations and best practices, and special considerations for advisory committees.
In October 2019, The National Council for Behavioral Health (National Council) and the New York Association of Psychiatric Rehabilitation Services (NYAPRS) collaborated to convene representatives from Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics (CCBHCs) and peer-run/recovery community organizations to explore best practice collaborations in delivering peer services in arrangements with CCBHCs. This brief is based on the conviction that peer-run agencies and CCBHCs can collaborate to improve consumer engagement and outcomes and the overall success of a truly comprehensive and integrated system of treatment services and supports.
Report: 3 Million People Now Served by Innovative Model of Care
Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics (CCBHCs) are providing an estimated 3 million people with mental health and substance use treatment and care, with 79% of clinics serving more people after becoming a CCBHC, according to the 2024 CCBHC Impact Report. Through their documented ability to improve access to lifesaving substance use treatment, recovery supports, crisis services, integrated care and other services, CCBHCs are eliminating barriers to access for people in hundreds of communities, according to the new report, which is based on survey responses from more than 300 clinics. The National Council for Mental Wellbeing produced the study.
BRSS TACS
Bringing Recovery Supports to Scale Technical Assistance Center Strategy (BRSS TACS)
Bringing Recovery Supports to Scale Technical Assistance Center Strategy (BRSS TACS) advances effective recovery supports and services for people with mental or substance use disorders and their families.
Suicide Prevention
Workshop: Advancing the Science on Peer Support and Suicide Prevention
This two-day workshop brought together experts in peer support suicide prevention to discuss relevant conceptual frameworks, recent advances in understanding what worked and for whom, service settings and service-user characteristics that informed intervention strategies across the crisis services continuum, digital and telehealth applications, considerations for youth, and equity considerations. The workshop identified innovative advancements and areas that needed additional research as the field moved forward.
Medicaid and CHIP Coverage
Frequently Asked Questions on Medicaid and CHIP Coverage of Peer Support Services
Released by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), these FAQs were developed in close collaboration with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) to provide clarification regarding federal policy on coverage of peer support services. CMS and SAMHSA encourage states to expand the availability and utilization of peer support services to serve adults, youth, and families who experience mental health conditions and/or substance use disorders. Peer Support services can be an important part of mental health and substance use treatment throughout the full continuum of care—prevention, treatment, harm reduction and recovery.