MHPS
What is a Mental Health Peer Specialist (MHPS)?
A Mental Health Peer Specialist is a person who has lived experience of recovery with mental health challenges who is trained to support people with mental health challenges. They provide support by honoring the self-identification and self-determination of the people receiving peer services, without focusing on or using clinical language or diagnoses.
Mental Health Peer Specialists work in many different environments, with jobs that focus on direct service, program management, advocacy, and more. For example, MHPS roles typically include types of work such as:
- • Recovery and wellness support, which includes providing information on and support with planning for recovery;
- • Mentoring, which includes serving as a role model and providing assistance in finding needed community resources and services; and
- • Advocacy, which includes providing support in stressful or urgent situations, and helping to ensure that the recipient’s rights are respected.
Eligibility Requirements
Individuals interested in becoming certified as a Mental Health Peer Specialist must meet the following eligibility criteria:
- • Be at least 18 years of age;
- • Have lived experience with mental health
- • Have a high school diploma or General Equivalency Diploma (GED)
- • Be willing to appropriately share your own recovery story with recipients
- • Be able to demonstrate current self-directed recovery
- • Pass criminal history and registry checks
MHPS Careers
Peer supporters work in many different environments, with jobs that focus on direct service, program management, advocacy, and more. For example, peer supporters in Texas provide direct services in:
- • Criminal justice settings (jails, prisons, specialty courts, probation and parole, etc.)
- • Community outreach programs (where peer supporters go into the communities where people live)
- • Hospitals and Inpatient Treatment Centers (psychiatric hospitals, general medicine hospitals, substance use treatment centers, and Veterans Administration hospitals)
- • Outpatient clinics (Federally Qualified Health Clinics, mental health clinics, substance use treatment clinics)
- • Peer-run organizations (Consumer-Operated Service Providers, Recovery Community Organizations, and other groups that are run by peer supporters and/or people in recovery)
- • Residential settings (domestic violence shelters, residential settings for people in substance use recovery, shelters or residential settings for people experiencing homelessness, etc.)
- • Virtual settings (app-based services, teleconferencing, chat-based support, etc.)
- • And many more!
Peer specialists also hold many different titles in the agencies where they work, including:
- • Peer Specialist or Family Partner (Paid or Volunteer)
- • Peer Specialist or Family Partner Supervisor
- • Program Coordinator
- • Program Manager
- • Recovery Coach
- • Executive Director
- • Legislative Advocate/Policy Fellow
- • And more!
If you are interested in becoming an MHPS, please sign up for the CORE training and then your journey begins.
