Recovery Support Services: An essential component in the continuum of care, and a healthy community.
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 integrate Peer Recovery Specialists, and peer-led 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?!