Mainstream Recovery understands that recovery support services are an essential component of high- quality, financially sustainable care. It is vital that an organization effectively and ethically implement peer recovery support services for their clients to provide the best possible chance of a successful recovery. Most organizations have not taken these necessary steps, we want to help.

We help by:

Preparing the Organizational Culture: Why do it?
- Solicit perspectives of people in recovery and/or people with experience using drugs, family members, and existing staff
- Conduct an agency walk-through and an agency self-assessment.
- Examine the extent to which agency language is recovery oriented and align policies with a recovery-oriented approach.
- Examine and create shared expectations related to boundaries and ethics.
- Clearly identify the actions needed to prepare for the integration of peer support services/staff.

Recruiting and Hiring Peer Staff
- Involve non-peer staff and organizational leaders throughout the hiring process.
- Writing a detailed job description and defining optimal peer staff qualifications.
- Understand relevant employment laws and understand what questions can be asked.
- Developing a range of interview formats.
- Best practices such as hiring more than one peer staff.
- Establishing competitive pay and benefits and supporting candidates onboarding/orientation, creating a positive experience.

Effective Service Delivery
- Structuring initial engagements.
- Conducting non-clinical assessments and facilitating Recovery/Wellness Planning.
- Designing the approach to delivering peer support services.
- Creating a culture of peer support.
- Promoting community integration.
- Providing continuing support.

Supporting, Supervising, and Retaining Peer Staff
- Providing appropriate and diverse types of supervision, peer supervision differs from that of clinical and social workers.
- Provide the right supervisory structure.
- Ensuring a collaborative and supportive supervision approach, not a punitive one.
- Hold peers accountable to fiduciary responsibilities, ensuring supervisors understand recovery values and terms vs. clinical terms.
- Establishing and supporting continued education for supervisors and peers
- What about self-care?!