Five Ways that Peer Specialist Add to Clinical Success
1. Peer Support Specialists Are Examples of Successful Community Integration. Hope is critically important for the recovery process. Simply by being visible to those seeking to recover, peer specialists represent real hope. People need to see models of successful recovery, including what it looks like to live a full life in the community. Peer Support Specialists model this by living, working and connecting to others in their community. Peers provide concrete evidence of the possibility of successfully returning to the community.
2. Peer Support Specialists Have a More Convincing Voice to Argue for Community Integration. Clinicians are typically seen as experts on illnesses and treatments, but are not as credible when it comes to topics like recovery and life after treatment. Peer Support Specialists by definition have lived experience in the recovery process and so when a Peer Support Specialist recommends that a person get more involved in the community, it is often seen as more reliable. The fact that they’ve achieved community integration in their own lives adds further to their credibility.
3. Peer Support Specialists Can “Bridge” Clients into Community Activities. Clinicians typically do not take clients into community activities or settings. Peers are often in roles where they can easily take clients to community activities, introduce them to key contacts, and spend time with them while they settle into the community.
4. Peer Support Specialists Model Key Behaviors. Peers can show others specific skills that are foundational to being part of the community. These include working, going to school, volunteering, socializing, and engaging in community-based recovery activities like peer support groups. They do this by their own behavior, and by talking about their own experiences and by talking about how they behave in ways that connect them to the community.
5. Peer Support Specialists Build Networks in the Community for Clients to Connect to. Depending on their role, Peer Support Specialists may be involved in building support groups and support networks in their community. Research over the past 50 years suggests that we are less connected to our communities and to each other (Putnam, 2000). Some Peer Support Specialists are actively working to build more social connection that we can all use to help our clients find relationships and an identity in a local community.
KEY WORDS: Peer Support Specialist, Recovery, Peer Support, Peer Support Training, Peer Support Certification, Peer Support Jobs