Headline
This toolkit details how to integrate peer support services into behavioral health provider organizations.
Context
Peer support services play a valuable role in recovery-oriented systems of care for people with behavioral health needs. Building on lessons learned over the past several decades in Philadelphia, the City of Philadelphia Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual Disability Services developed this toolkit to help health care organizations recruit, retain, and integrate individuals with lived experience into peer support services for mental health and/or substance use disorder care.
About this Tool
Modules of the toolkit address:
- Considerations for preparing the organizational culture in advance of implementing peer services, including exploring senior leadership commitment to recovery-oriented care and soliciting the input of people with lived experience, their families, and the organization’s existing staff;
- Strategies for recruiting and hiring peer staff, including tips for writing peer job descriptions;
- Guidelines for developing effective service delivery, including optimizing initial engagement with peers and patients and integrating peers into the organization’s overall assessment and service planning process; and
- Promising practices for supporting, supervising, and retaining peer staff, such as developing pathways for career mobility.
Takeaways
Executive leadership, supervisors, and peer staff can use this toolkit when integrating peers into behavioral health service settings.
