PACT Peer Specialist

The Peer Specialist has experience as a recipient of mental health services and is willing to use and share their personal, practical experience, knowledge, and first-hand insight to benefit the team and its clients. The Peer Specialist functions as a fully integrated team member to provide expertise about the recovery process, symptom management, and the persistence required by clients to have a satisfying life. They attend daily reports, participate fully in the assessment process, and typically work during the 9-5 hours (similar to the clinical team). The Peer Specialist collaborates to promote a team culture that recognizes, understands, and respects each client’s point of view, experiences, and preferences. They are responsible to maximize client choice, self-determination and decision-making in the planning, delivery and evaluation of treatment, rehabilitation and support services. They provide peer counseling and consultation to individual clients, families, and team staff; act as a liaison with community resources; carry out rehabilitation and support functions; and assist in treatment, substance abuse services, education, support and consultation to families and crisis intervention under the clinical supervision of staff with professional degrees.

Essential Functions and Responsibilities:

• Provide peer counseling and support, drawing on common experience as a peer, to validate clients’ experiences and to provide guidance and encouragement to clients to take responsibility and actively participate in their own recovery.
• Serve as a mentor to clients to promote hope and empowerment.
• Act as an interpreter to help non-mental health consumer team members better understand and empathize with each client’s unique and subjective experience and perceptions.
• Provide expertise and consultation from a mental health consumer perspective to the entire team concerning clients’ experiences on symptoms of mental illness, the effects and side-effects of medications, clients’ responses to and opinions of treatment, and clients’ experiences of recovery.
• Collaborate with the team to promote a team culture in which each client’s point of view, experiences, and preferences are recognized, understood and respected, and in which client self-determination and decision-making in treatment planning are maximized and supported.
• Help clients identify, understand, and combat stigma and discrimination associated with mental illness and develop strategies to reduce self-stigma.
• Help other team members identify and understand culture-wide stigma and discrimination against people with mental illness and develop strategies to eliminate stigma within the team.
• Collaborate with the team to ensure the protection of clients’ rights in order to help clients to improve their knowledge of client rights and grievance or complaint procedures.
• Increase awareness of and support client participation in consumer self-help programs and consumer advocacy organizations that promote recovery.
• Serve as the liaison between the team and consumer run programs such as self help groups, drop in centers, or other peer run organizations.
• Assist in the provision of ongoing assessment of clients’ mental illness symptoms and clients’ response to treatment. Suggest appropriate changes in treatment plans to ensure that immediate and appropriate interventions are provided in response to changes in clients’ mental status or behavior which puts clients at risk.
• Assist in the provision of direct clinical services to clients on an individual, group and family basis in the office and in community settings to teach symptom-management techniques and promote personal growth and development by assisting clients to cope with internal and external stresses.
• Assist in the provision of individual and group treatment in the office and in community settings in a stage based treatment model that is non-confrontational, considers interactions of mental illness and substance abuse, and has client-determined goals
• Provide mentoring, problem solving, encouragement and support to clients who are engaged in work and vocational goals.
• Provide ongoing assessment, problem solving, side by side services, skill teaching, and environmental adaptations to assist clients with activities of daily living. These might include assistance with finding and maintaining safe and affordable housing, assisting with personal hygiene and grooming tasks, assistance with meal planning, grocery shopping, and food preparation, and assistance with money management and transportation.
• Provide side by side support, coaching, and encouragement to help clients socialize (going with a client to community activities, including activities offered by consumer- run peer support organizations).
• Coordinate the development of WRAP plans with clients and their implementation by the treatment team.
• Facilitate a WRAP or peer group once weekly
• Support and organize recovery events, including presentations or bringing in outside speakers for the purpose of education and training for both client and staff
• Adhere to all HIPAA and all federal client privacy regulations.
• Maintain accurate written documentation of client interactions daily.

Nonessential Functions:

• Occasional interstate travel
• Other related duties as assigned

Success Factors/Job Competencies:

• Problem-solving skills on both strategic and functional levels
• Commitment to company values and philosophy
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills
• Strong team player, flexibility, and creativity

Physical Demands and Work Environment:

• Physical Demands: While performing the duties of this job, the employee is often required to walk, sit, drive a vehicle, use hands to type, handle or feel objects, reach with hands and arms, bend, walk up and downstairs, talk, hear, and see
• Work Environment: Most work is performed outside of the office setting

• College degree in Human Services field, or in another area, have a high school diploma, or have at least two years of paid or volunteer work experiences with adults with severe and persistent mental illness.
• Must have good oral and written communication skills
• Is or has been or is currently a recipient of mental health services for severe and persistent mental illness and has self-knowledge to manage their mental illness and be well along in their recovery
• Must have strong commitment to the right and the ability of each person with a severe mental illness to live in normal community residences; work in market jobs; and have access to helpful, adequate, competent, and continuous supports and services
• Have skills and competence to establish supportive trusting relationships with persons with severe and persistent mental illnesses and respect for the clients’ rights and personal preferences in treatment
• Must have a valid driver’s license, dependable automobile, and a clean drivers record (in MA & CA only)
• WRAP facilitation and peer certification training is desired