Peer Support Specialist

Colorado Village Collaborative seeks a Peer Support Specialist with lived experience with homelessness and mental health and/or substance misuse and is housed and in recovery. The Peer Specialist is willing to use and share their personal, practical experience, knowledge, and first-hand insight to benefit program clients and their support team.

A successful candidate will provide assistance, support, and advocacy for program clients, identifying life choices and helping them overcome obstacles to achieve their goals. The Peer Support Specialist will promote personal growth, development, and recovery by focusing on the client’s strengths. Using their lived experience, the Peer Support Specialist will support clients with the transition from homelessness to being housed. This position reports to the SOS Program Director.

A partial listing of responsibilities is below:

Key Area 1 – One-to-One Peer Support

• Provides individual peer support, drawing on common experiences as a peer, to validate clients’ experiences and provide guidance and encouragement to clients to take responsibility and actively participate in their recovery.
• Helps clients identify, understand, and combat stigma and discrimination associated with mental health, substance misuse, and homelessness and develop strategies to reduce self-stigma.
• Maintains a work environment that is marked by respect for others, values inclusiveness, and fosters cooperation and teamwork.
• Appropriately responds to crises as they arise in a trauma-informed manner.
• Solicits, listens, and responds to client feedback about services.
• Assist chronically homeless individuals in transitioning into and maintaining supportive housing up to one year post-move.
• Provides information and assists clients in skill-building activities, including Wellness Recovery and Action Planning (WRAP), goal setting, and problem-solving.
• Facilitates connections to substance misuse programs and on-site/telehealth mental health resources.

Key Area 2 – Group Support

• Works to create a supportive working environment that encourages trauma-informed and culturally competent interactions, builds collaboration and makes a kind and respectful atmosphere.
• Provides group peer support, drawing on common experiences as a peer to validate clients’ experiences and provide guidance and encouragement to clients to take responsibility and actively participate in their own recovery.
• Engages clients in participating in the weekly neighborhood cleanups.

Key Area 3 – Data Collection and Documentation

• Maintains and ensures the confidentiality of all client information.
• Completes all necessary documentation, including HMIS, promptly.
• Completes all required forms and reports in a complete and timely manner.

Key Area 4 – Professionalism and Teamwork

• Understands and follows the related policies and procedures of the SOS operations.
• Attends required meetings and regular supervision, focusing on mastering the core competencies of the Peer Support Specialist profession.
• Attends and participates in formal and informal staff meetings and addresses client and program issues.
• Provide excellent internal and external customer service and communicate in a professional, timely, and effective manner.
• Actively participates, collaborates, and contributes to the multidisciplinary team to promote a team culture in which each client’s point of view, experiences, and preferences are recognized, understood, and respected and in which client self-determination and decision-making in service planning are maximized and supported.

Qualifications Summary

• A prior or current recipient of mental health, substance, and homeless services who can role model recovery and is actively participating in it. Two (2) years or more in recovery is preferred. All pathways are honored.
• One year or more of volunteer and paid experience is preferred.
• Peer Support Specialist training and State of Colorado credentials.
• High School Diploma or equivalent.
• At least one year of being successfully housed is mandatory
• Experience in operating computerized office equipment and telephones.
• Reliable transportation is required.
• Familiar with Wellness Recovery and Action Planning (WRAP) facilitation is a plus.

Skills Needed:

• Time management with the ability to meet a timeline
• Excellent written and verbal communication
• Administrative Skills
• Conflict Mediation/Resolution Skills
• Ability to relate to people from diverse backgrounds and experience
• Trauma-Informed approach
• Creativity and flexibility
• Resilience and thick skin
• Anti-racist, anti-oppression lens