Professional Tools
The following organizations offer materials and information that may be helpful to people providing peer professional services. Learn more about statewide recovery initiatives, or order mental health advance directives, anti-stigma materials, or goal-planning sheets. Explore what these organizations offer that could be useful in direct peer support work.
Information
National Survey of Compensation Among Peer Support Specialists – This report is the result of a partnership between The College for Behavioral Health Leadership, The International Association of Peer Supporters, the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance, and the New York Association of Psychiatric Rehabilitation Services. It is a detailed analysis of Peer Support wages nationwide.
PA Recovery – The Pennsylvania Office of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services (OMHSAS) oversees the activities and funding of Pennsylvania’s Behavioral Health Care System including Peer Support services.
Centers of Excellence (COE) help ensure that people with opioid-related substance use disorder stay in treatment to receive follow-up care and are supported within their communities. The centers coordinate care for people with Medicaid, and treatment is team-based and “whole person” focused, with the explicit goal of integrating behavioral health and primary care. This page has information on Pennsylvania’s Centers of Excellence as well as a list of all COEs within the Commonwealth.
SMART Recovery is an abstinence-oriented, not-for-profit organization for individuals with addictive problems. Their self-empowering, free mutual support meetings focus on ideas and techniques to help you change your life from one that is self-destructive and unhappy to one that is constructive and satisfying. SMART Recovery does not use labels like “addict” or “alcoholic.” They teach scientifically validated methods designed to empower you to change and to develop a more positive lifestyle. After you have become familiar with SMART and are free of any addictive behavior, they encourage you to become a volunteer, so that they can keep expanding the number of meetings they offer.
Materials
Understanding that mental health is just as important as physical health, Pennsylvania launched an online Mental Health Resources Guide intended to provide Pennsylvanians with a full complement of resources available to help everyone with their mental health needs.
The Mental Health Association in Pennsylvania (MHAPA) works on behalf of Pennsylvania’s citizens to instill principles of recovery and resiliency. MHAPA offers materials to order, including Mental Health Advance Directive booklets. You can use Advance Directive booklets to support a person in writing their own Advance Directive plan.
The National Mental Health Consumers’ Self-Help Clearinghouse, the United States’ first national consumer technical assistance center, has played a major role in the development of the mental health consumer movement. Their Web site offers information about conferences, publications, and resources that may be helpful to people providing peer support. It also has a directory of organizations that are run by people who have received mental health services.
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) is a federal agency within the Department of Health and Human Services. SAMHSA’s mission is to reduce the impact of substance abuse and mental illness on America’s communities by promoting and sponsoring quality behavioral health services. SAMHSA’s web site offers a rich selection of free resources on mental health services ranging from articles, videos, and resource guides that may be useful for peer support work. Order resources related to mental health and substance abuse.
Support the Journey was born out of inspiration to offer messages of support and hope with people recovering from mental illness and addiction. Support the Journey provides messages and products that help us to remember our potential for recovering from emotional darkness and offers an opportunity to show others that they can recover also.
DBHIDS’ new toolkit is designed to support behavioral health treatment agencies with the process of integrating peer providers into their service settings. The Peer Support Toolkit incorporates many of the promising practices and resources that have emerged during the last decade of Philadelphia’s recovery-focused system transformation effort. Tools in this kit are designed to help agencies to recruit, retain, and effectively deploy people in recovery in a variety of peer support roles. The resources and information provided is relevant for executive leadership along with supervisors and peer staff.
Engaging Women in Trauma-Informed Peer Support: A Guidebook was created by the National Center on Trauma-Informed Care as a technical assistance document to help make trauma-informed peer support available to women who receive or have received services in behavioral health or other human service systems. It is designed as a resource for peer supporters in these or other settings who want to learn how to integrate trauma-informed principles into their relationships with the women they support or into the peer support groups of which they are members. The goal is to provide peer supporters both male and female with the understanding, tools, and resources needed to engage in culturally responsive, trauma-informed peer support relationships with women.