Peer Service Integration
RCO Capacity Building
Peer Workforce Development
Evidence Based Practices
Health Equity
Funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), the Peer Recovery Center of Excellence (PR CoE), the Peer Recovery Center of Excellence is the first of its kind focused on providing direct training and technical assistance to the nation’s peer recovery support workforce and recovery communities.
Peer recovery support services (PRSS) are vital to the recovery community as they can support recovery in a variety of service settings and everyday environments where people work and live. This is especially important because while people reach recovery through various pathways such as support groups, medication, counseling, and faith communities, they sustain and maintain recovery in their communities and homes.
The PR CoE’s work was originally divided into four focus areas as part of adopting a multilevel systems approach to promoting PRSS. To support that approach, PR CoE’s five focus areas seek to build the capacity of the peer workforce, recovery community organizations (RCOs), and other organizations within the ecosystem of recovery, such as substance use treatment centers, healthcare organizations, schools, and other institutions. The fourth focus area promotes identifying, disseminating, and adopting evidence-based practice and practice-based evidence in PRSS. Recently, a fifth focus area was established, emphasizing the importance of incorporating a lens of health equity within the work of PRSS and of the PR CoE.
The PR CoE’s focus areas work collaboratively and cohesively to deliver training, respond to technical assistance requests, and develop resources for the peer workforce, RCOs, and other organizations implementing PRSS. We do this by meeting regularly to discuss possible areas for collaboration and by working to consistently center the PR CoE’s vision, mission, and values identified and developed by the Steering Committee.
Each focus area’s staff each have a Steering Committee liaison assigned to work with them; the Steering Committee members also meet regularly to promote collaboration across focus areas and to provide strategic direction for the PR CoE.
Funding for this initiative was made possible by grant no. 1H79TI083022 from SAMHSA. The views expressed in written conference materials or publications and by speakers and moderators do not necessarily reflect the official policies of the Department of Health and Human Services; nor does mention of trade names, commercial practices, or organizations imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.
