Continuing Education Requirements for Certified Peer Specialists

Pennsylvania Certified Peer Specialists are credentialed through the Pennsylvania Certification Board (PCB). The PCB certification is good for two years from the date it is received. Within that two year period a CPS must meet the following continuing education requirements to be eligible for renewal of their certification:

• Aquire 36 hours of relevant continuing education units (CEUs)
  • 24 CEUs must be specifically focused on peer support, recovery practices, or both
  • 3 CEUs must be in ethics (i.e. boundaries, confidentiality, cultural competence, mental health law, mandated reporting, etc.)
  • 9 CEUs are elective and can be any education/training the CPS chooses
  • The educational/training hours can be from various sources (online, face-to-face, in-service, college courses, home-study, webinars, etc.)

Continuing education trainings do not have to be pre-approved by the PCB. The training presenters do not need to have any specific qualifications. The training should have a presenter, learning objectives, and come with a certificate of completion.

Visit the Continuing Education Resources page for more information about some good sources of continuing education for peer specialists.

Documenting/Verifying Continuing Education

To document that you have received your required training, you should keep any certificates of completion that you get from trainings you attend. The certificate does not specifically need to say that it counts towards your Certified Peer Specialist continuing education requirements. Employers may have policies/procedures for recording trainings. Please check with your employer on any specific requirements they have.

When you renew your certification through the PCB they will have you list the trainings you have attended. You will NOT have to provide them with copies of the training certificates UNLESS they specifically request them from you. The PCB policy is to randomly audit renewal applications.

If you attend a training that does not offer a certificate of completion, you should keep any materials that you did get from the training (handouts, training overview, or the workshop description). Then get your supervisor’s signature and date on those materials indicating that you attended. For example, if you attend a webinar, you would save the webinar announcement and any handouts. Then you would have your supervisor sign and date on the webinar announcement that you attended.