Recovery Support Specialist
Competency-based
ONET: 21-1093.00
1
Years
111
Skills
154h
Related instructions
Classroom instruction topics
- Certified Recovery Support Specialist (CRSS) Certification Training
- Addiction in the Family
- Advanced Concepts in Mental Health and Substance Abuse
- CPR and First Aid
- Crisis Management for Peers
- Supporting Peers with Co-Occurring Disorders
- Professional Growth and Development
- Ethics and Boundaries
- Trauma Informed Care for Peer Support
- Evidence-based Practices in Peer Support
- Digital Health Literacy
- Certified Recovery Support Specialist (CRSS) Certificate
- CPR Certificate
On-the-job training
- Understands Peer Role
- Demonstrate the role and scope of work of the Peer Specialist when working as a member of the healthcare team
- Engages peers in collaborative and caring relationships
- Initiates contact with peers
- Listens to peers with careful attention to the content and emotion being communicated
- Reaches out to engage peers across the whole continuum of the recovery process
- Demonstrates genuine acceptance by engaging with peers in a respectful manner
- Demonstrates understanding of peers' experiences and feelings
- Provides support
- Validates peers' experiences and feelings
- Encourages the exploration and pursuit of community roles
- Conveys hope to peers about their own recovery
- Celebrates peers' efforts and accomplishments
- Provides concrete assistance to help peers accomplish tasks and goals
- Shared lived experiences of recovery
- Relates own recovery stories, and with permission, the recovery stories of others' to inspire hope
- Discusses ongoing personal efforts to enhance health, wellness, and recovery
- Recognizes when to share experiences and when to listen
- Describes personal recovery practices and helps peers discover recovery practices that work for them
- Personalizes peer support
- Understands own personal values and culture and how these may contribute to biases, judgments, and beliefs
- Appreciates and respect the cultural and spiritual beliefs and practices of peers and their families
- Recognizes and responds to the complexities and uniqueness of each peer's process of recovery
- Tailors services and support to meet the preferences and unique needs of peers and their families
- Supports recovery planning
- Assists and supports peers to set goals and to dream of future possibilities
- Proposes strategies to help peers accomplish tasks or goals
- Supports peers to use decision-making strategies when choosing services and supports
- Helps peers to function as a member of their treatment/recovery support team
- Links to resources, services, and supports
- Researches and identifies credible information and options from various resources
- Develops and maintains up-to-date information about community resources and services
- Assists peers to investigate, select, and use needed and desired resources and services
- Helps peers to find and use health services and supports
- Accompanies peers to community activities and appointments when requested
- Participates in community activities with peers when requested
- Provides information about skills related to health, wellness, and recovery
- Educates peers about health, wellness, recovery and recovery supports
- Participates with peers in discovery or co-learning to enhance recovery experiences
- Coaches peers about how to access treatment and services and navigate systems of care
- Coaches peers in desired skills and strategies that enhance recovery
- Educates family members and other supportive individuals about recovery and recovery supports
- Uses therapeutic approaches that match the preferences and needs of peers
- Helps peers to manage crises
- Recognizes signs of distress and threats to safety among peers and in their environments
- Provides reassurance to peers in distress
- Strives to create safe spaces when meeting with peers
- Takes action to address distress or a crisis by using knowledge of local resources, treatment, services, and support preferences of peers
- Assists peers in developing advance directives and other crisis prevention tools
- Values communication
- Uses respectful, person-centred, recovery-oriented language in written and verbal interactions with peers, family members, community members, and others
- Uses active listening skiills
- Clarifies their understanding of information when in doubt of the meaning
- Conveys their point of view when working with colleagues
- Documents information as required by program policies and procedures
- Follows laws and rules concerning confidentiality and respects others' rights for privacy
- Supports collaboration and teamwork
- Works together with other colleagues to enhance the provision of services and supports
- Assertively engages providers from mental health services, addiction services, and physical medicine to meet the needs of peers
- Coordinates efforts with health care providers to enhance the health and wellness of peers
- Coordinates efforts with peers' family members and other natural supports
- Partners with community members and organizations to strengthen opportunities for peers
- Strives to resolve conflicts in relationships with peers and others in their support network
- Promotes leadership and advocacy
- Uses of knowledge of relevant rights and laws (ADA, HIIPAA, Olmstead, etc.) to ensure that peer's rights are respected
- Advocates for the needs and desires of peers in treatment team meetings, community services, living situations, and with family
- Uses knowledge of legal resources and advocacy organization to build an advocacy plan
- Participates in advocacy efforts, such as recovery walks and community engagement events to eliminate prejudice and discrimination of people who have mental and behavioral health conditions
- Educates colleagues about the process of recovery and the use of recovery support services
- Actively participates in efforts to improve the organization
- Maintains a positive reputation in peer/professional communities
- Promotes growth and development
- Recognizes the limits of their knowledge and seeks assistance from others when needed
- Uses supervision (mentoring, reflection) effectively by monitoring self and relationships, and engaging in problem-solving strategies with the supervisor (mentor, peer)
- Reflect and examines own personal motivations, judgments, and feelings yay may be activated by the peer work
- Recognizes signs of distress and seeks support and guidance from supervisor
- Seeks opportunities to increase knowledge and skills of peer support
- Recovery Orientation
- Understands the importance of instilling hope, often facilitated through appropriate self-disclosure, and mutuality
- Uses person-first language while simultaneously acknowledging the value of the substance use disorder recovery identity ("addict" and "alcoholic") for those who choose their own terms of self-identification
- Promotes self-determination avoiding the culture of diagnosis and labeling
- Supports concepts of self-efficacy and empowerment
- Honors client choice, many pathways to recovery, self-direction, and person-centered recovery planning
- Supports fostering independence versus dependence, including employment assistance and overcoming barriers to independent living
- Recognizes recovery capital/assets, natural supports, inclusion of family, friends, and allies, and a strengths-based approach to support recovery
- Recognizes the imperative of addressing discrimination, oppression, and stigma, and it is transformative power in recovery
- Acknowledges the importance of client advocacy and the importance of setting professional boundaries
- Supports informed consent and client choice regarding the use of behavioral health medications
- Understands that recovery support services are non-linear services, occurring pre-treatment, during treatment, and post-treatment
- Recognizes that individuals receiving peer services are active agents of change in their lives and not passive recipients of services
- Recognizes the importance of addressing Trauma, Social Inequity & Health Care Disparity
- Recognizes the consequences of trauma on individuals, families and communities, including, but not limited to: physical health, psychological health and well-being, occupational performance, and parenting.
- Understands models of trauma-informed care and best practices for varied populations
- Recognizes the traumatic challenges faced by vulnerable populations (poverty, ethnic/cultural minorities, sexual minorities, disabilities, homelessness, military experience, or other vulnerabilities)
- Aware of specific health care disparity data of vulnerable populations in the local community and local systems of care
- Cognizant of his or her own biases and the institutional biases within organizations in which they work
- Promotes trauma awareness among peer staff, peer-delivered services programming, and the greater behavioural health system in which they work
- Addresses discrimination, stigma, and shame experiences by vulnerable populations
- Creates and promotes a culture of safety within the agency and peer-delivered services environment
- Providing Educational Training - Ongoing Training
- Has the capacity to provide education and ongoing coaching on a variety of topics
- Understands the basic principles of adult learning strategies
- Designs and implements ongoing education in staff meeting formats, agency in-services, and individual instruction/coaching as indicated
- Provides ongoing education/training/coaching opportunities to other colleagues. Examples include: documentation standards and data entry systems, motivational enhancement techniques/micro-skills, outreach, engagement, rapport-building, peer competencies (
- Supports peer staff in obtaining ongoing training to advance their personal efficacy and competencies in delivering peer support services through participation in classes, conferences, webinars, and other forms of education and training
- Providing Educational Training - Professional System Navigation
- Assists peer staff in understanding the etiquette, procedures, and legal obligations for cooperative working relationships with Child Welfare
- Assists peer staff in understanding the etiquette, procedures, and legal obligations for cooperative working relationships with Courts, Probation, and Parole
- Assists peer staff in understanding the etiquette, procedures, and legal obligations for cooperative working relationships with various entitlement programs
- Assists peer staff in understanding the etiquette, procedures, and legal obligations for cooperative working relationships with addiction treatment
- Assists peer staff in understanding the etiquette, procedures, and legal obligations for cooperative working relationships with traditional mental health institutions
- Assists peer staff in understanding the etiquette, procedures, and legal obligations for cooperative working relationships with Medication Assisted Treatment services
- Assists peer staff in understanding the etiquette, procedures, and legal obligations for cooperative working relationships with primary care providers
- Audits peer staff documentation to allied health care and governmental agencies
- Coaches peers with writing skills and documentation practices appropriate to circumstances and congruent with client rights and protections
- Providing Educational Training - Applicable Laws & Regulations
- Advises peer staff regarding the applicability of confidentiality regulations HIPAA and Code of Federal Regulation 42, Part II in their cases
- Advises peer staff regarding the applicability of Mandatory Reporting Guidelines and their obligations to report suspected child abuse
- Advises peer staff regarding the applicability of Americans with Disabilities Act, reasonable accommodations, and those participating in Medication Assisted Treatment as a protected class under the ADA
- Advises peer staff regarding the applicability of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the principles of non-discrimination
- Advises peer staff regarding the applicability of Medicaid Fraud reporting, investigations, and legal consequences
- Advises peer staff regarding the applicability of the Fair Housing Act and protections for those participating in addiction and recovery services and those participating in Medication Assisted Treatment
- Monitors relevant service obligations specific to the contracts/conditions provided by funders including reporting criteria and schedules, service restrictions, special requirements, and respecting their legal and regulatory obligations
- Supports, advises, and develops policies regarding accommodations for those with other special needs, language barriers, literacy challenges, and other impediments
- Providing Educational Training - Community Resources
- Assists peer staff in maintaining access to community resources directories and facilitates the sharing of community resource information within the team
- Assists peer staff in developing referral relationships with varies community resources, including indigenous recovery support resources that are not part of the traditional health and human services system
- Develops and maintains an up-to-date resource library/directory and/or access to community resource information (e.g. computer access, notebooks/binders, and directories)
- Models methods for seeking and understanding community resources and models the appropriate use of community resources.
- Assists peer staff in maintaining access to community resource directories and facilitates the sharing of community resource information within the team
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