Peer Recovery Support Specialist

1. Family Resources Individual Community Peer Recovery Support Specialist “The Change Agents That Are Bridging The Gaps”

2. What is a Peer Recovery Support Specialist • A popular and commonly used term to identify a Peer Recovery Support Specialist is “Recovery Coach”. • Below is a list of other titles used to identify a Recovery Coach. Peer Case Manager Peer Mentor Peer Recovery Advocate Peer Support Specialist Certified Peer Specialist Peer Navigator Recovery Support Specialist Peer Care Coordinator

3. Recovery Coach as defined by FAVOR • Personal guide and mentor for individuals/families seeking to initiate, achieve and sustain long-term recovery from addiction including medication assisted, faith based, 12 step and other pathways to recovery • Connector and navigator in recovery supportive systemsand resources including housing, employment, and other professional and non-professional services • Liaison to formal and informal community supports, resources and recovery supporting activities Source: Addiction Peer Recovery Service Rules: Excerpted from Faces and Voices of Recovery - Recovery Management in Health Reform

4. The Role or Task of a Recovery Coach A Recovery Coach provides non-clinical, peer-based activities that engage, educate and support an individual to successfully make life changes necessary to recover from disabling mental illness and /or substance use disorder conditions. The activities that comprise these services are education and coaching. A key element contributing to the value of this service is that Recovery Coaches appropriately highlight their personal experience of lived experience of recovery.

5. Activities and Services of a Recovery Coach The activities and services provided by a Recovery Coach are identified or defined as “Peer Recovery Support Services”by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). Ref: http://www.samhsa.gov/grants/blockgrant/Peer_Recovery_Support_CoachingDefinition_05-12-2011.pdf

6. Peer Recovery Support Services Research has shown that recovery is facilitated by social support (McLellan et al., 1998), and four types of social support domains have been identified in the literature (Cobb, 1976; Salzer, 2002): • Emotional • Informational • Instrumental • Affiliational

7. Description of Social Support Domains Support Domain Description Peer Support Service Emotional Demonstrate empathy, caring, or concern to *Peer Mentoring bolster person’s self-esteem and confidence. *Peer-led Support Group InformationalShare knowledge and information and/or *Parenting Class provide life or vocational skills training. *Job Readiness Training *Wellness Seminar

8. Description of Social Support Domains Support Domain Description Peer Support Service InstrumentalProvide concrete assistance to help others *Child Careaccomplish tasks. *TransportationHelp Accessing CommunityHealth and Social Services AffiliationalFacilitate contacts with other people to *Recovery Centers promote learning of social and recreational *Sports League skills, create community, and acquire a sense Participation of belonging. *Alcohol and Drug- free Socialization Opportunities

9. Social Support - (Scenario #1) For example, a project that is planning social support services to address recovering people’s employment needs might consider whether a job referral (informational support) by itself is adequate, or whether emotional support (such as supportive coaching to prepare for an interview), and/or instrumental support (such as help cleaning up a criminal record) might also be needed. In general, the more robust the types of social support available to address any given recovery concern, the more likely that a person seeking help will walk away with useful information, a new insight or skill, or more confidence to help with the tasks ahead. Ref: http://store.samhsa.gov/shin/content//SMA09-4454/SMA09-4454.pdf

10. Support Roles of a Recovery Coach • Provides emotional and social support, listening, sharing of recovery experience, and teaching of how each individual possesses some of his/her own recovery capital to help sustain their recovery • Provides assistance in setting recovery goals and developing recovery plans • Provides support in restructuring life and developing life and coping skills to facilitate recovery • Provides help in developing recovery-supportive friendship, kinship and community networks • Provides fluid links between treatment, peer recovery support services and mutual aid • Serves as role model and practical living example of recovery

11. Support Roles of a Recovery Coach (Cont.) • Facilitates access to services and resources supporting early recovery: housing, employment, education, etc. • Provides connections to health (primary, dental, mental health, etc.), human services and other relevant systems, including criminal justice and child welfare • Serves as recovery liaison to probation officers, social workers, child welfare agents • Provides culturally appropriate and recovery-oriented health education • Serves as advocate for individual and community needs • Builds individual, family and community capacity for recovery capital via advocacy and organized community-based recovery activities

12. Value of Recovery Coach Services • Peer Recovery Coaches highlight their personal and lived experience of recovery as a key component of their service role. • This element, missing from other service settings, is central to why peer services are so effective, popular and successful. • A service context that minimizes the power differential between coach and peer helps to create situations in which peers experience trust. Peers are encouraged to make informed choices and guided decisions about the initiation and self-management of their own recovery. • The relationship between the peer recovery coach and the person receiving services involvesongoing communication that entailscheck-ins on progress, identification of challenges, and strategies to address them. • Peer Recovery Coaches should not be confused with case management. The coach has a broader and more comprehensive role and tasks than a case manager.

13. Value of Recovery Coach Services (cont.) • Because the coach is available on a number of levels and in a variety of contexts, the person receiving services is able to access recovery-appropriate systems, services and community resources with the assurance of monitored follow-up, balanced with ongoing guidance and support. • Without sacrificing quality, peer recovery coaching can be offered in a time-sensitive and cost-effective manner. • Further, because of the nature of the service relationship and setting, the peer recovery coach is able to engage individuals at critical – and often fleeting – moments of opportunity, providing continuity of contact in a supportive recovery relationship. • The case manager’s work only falls in the instrumental domain, unlike the peer recovery coach, who fulfills all four domains. Ref: http://www.facesandvoicesofrecovery.org/publications/enews/2010-09-23/9.11.10_PRSS_health_reform_final.pdf