A peer support specialist is a person with "lived experience" who has been trained to support those who struggle with mental health, psychological trauma, or substance use. Their personal experience of these challenges provide peer support specialists with expertise that professional training cannot replicate.

Some roles filled by peer support specialists include assisting their peers in articulating their goals for recovery, learning and practicing new skills, helping them monitor their progress, supporting them in their treatment, modeling effective coping techniques and self-help strategies based on the specialist's own recovery experience, supporting them in advocating for themselves to obtain effective services, and developing and implementing recovery plans.

In 2007, the Department of Health and Human Services recognized peer support services as an evidence-based practice. It also informed all 50 state Medicaid directors that The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services would pay for peer support services, provided that peer support specialists--like other types of healthcare providers--were governed by a statewide training and credentialing program.

As of 2016, 42 US states, the District of Columbia, and the Veterans' Administration have adopted such programs to train and certify individuals to work as peer support specialists.

NON-CLINICAL PATHWAYS OF RECOVERY

Non-clinical pathways represent just over half of all preferred pathways of recovery. They include peer-based recovery supports, recovery community centers, educationally based recovery services, faith- and culture-based recovery supports, and recovery housing. Many of these pathways and recovery supports are offered through Recovery Community Organizations.