Enhancing the Peer Provider Workforce: Recruitment, Supervision and Retention

Key findings related to emerging/promising principles for engaging PWLLE:

• Peer provider services are recognized as evidenced based.
• They are creative, non-traditional, and beneficial to individuals using traditional services.
• The evidence of peer services in traditional settings can be effective or more effective than other services.
• Empowerment, meaningful relationships, and opportunities to improve their lives are benefits to people engaged in these services.
• Recovery, resiliency and wellness are components of peer provider services.
• Peer providers serve as role models, modeling recovery to other staff, families and peers receiving behavioral health services.
• Substance use peer recovery support and other recovery support activities demonstrate improved relationships with providers and social supports, increased satisfaction with the treatment experience overall, reduced rates of relapse, and increased retention in treatment.
• Once you have implemented the new peer services, it is important to monitor progress and make changes as needed along the way.

Key findings related to emerging/promising practices for engaging PWLLE:

• For successful integration of peer providers and services, the board of directors and executive management staff in community agencies and governing body and management staff of state hospitals must be committed to hiring people in recovery as peer providers.
• Conduct a readiness assessment for Peer Workforce Integration. Based on the assessment, prepare the existing workforce by conducting sensitivity training about the integration of peer providers. The goal of your workplace environment needs to be a stigma-free/discrimination-free workplace. Once you have a safe place for workers with mental health issues that is free from stigma and discrimination, other workers who may be experiencing mental health problems will know it’s safe to seek help.
• Develop clearly written job descriptions and performance expectations for employees.
• Find funding sources to hire peer providers.
• The supervision and retention of peer providers are areas that do not appear in the literature as much as recruiting and hiring. The relationship of the worker and supervisor is one reason why peers stay or leave; they are not leaving the job in many cases, they are leaving the supervisor. Retention is no different for peer provider staff than it is for any other staff. The best supervision for peer providers combines support with mentoring, coaching, and training that improves the peer’s skills and the quality of their service. This kind of supervision proves invaluable in retaining peer providers.

Key findings related to policies:

• Policy and practices regarding ethics and boundaries need to be clarified. Peer providers should always operate under a code of ethics. Other professionals’ codes of ethics do not apply to peer providers and the services they provide.
• Some individuals in recovery who are qualified to be peer providers fail criminal background checks and are not hired. More information is often needed regarding the failed background check to see if they may have been arrested but not convicted, convicted but not incarcerated, or convicted of a non-violent crime.

Key findings related to implementation approaches:

Guidance on supervision can be found in the document’s Appendix. Source: Nanette Larson, Director of Recovery Support Service, Illinois, DHS/Division of Mental Health Supervision.

Other Resource Materials (i.e., images, frameworks, tables…):

Substantial resource bibliography.