Resource Library

The purpose of the Sharing Experience Learned Firsthand (SELF) project was to gain an appreciation from recovering individuals of the role of lived experience of mental health challenges in professional training and work experience. SELF was conducted under the Lived Experience Research Network (LERN), an organization developed to promote service user leadership and inclusion in the behavioral health and disabilities fields. The project was led by three individuals with lived experience engaged in consumer advocacy and graduate training. We were interested in the risks and benefits of self-disclosure of lived experience, the effects on collegial relationships, and the impact on service delivery. Increased understanding of such experiences could be used in the development of best practices in the use of self-disclosure and to promote the integration of peers in the behavioral health workforce. Accordingly, we conducted interviews and focus groups with individuals with lived experience who had worked in mental health, medical, and academic settings. They spoke to their experiences sharing lived experience and offered guidance to individuals and organizations regarding disclosure. Social and work context, discrimination, and the recovery process featured in their responses. Illustrative quotations will be shared in this guidebook. Based largely on their reports, we created an online survey to be completed anonymously. It was distributed across the US in order to gain further understanding of perspectives and recommendations. The findings of the project will be presented and explored after a selective review of available research.

The goal of this course is to develop skills to deliver screening and brief intervention in an HIV care setting, to begin a conversation around the implementation of SBIRT in standard practice. The learning activities that will be utilized include didactic teaching, role plays, group discussions, and peer evaluation.

Full Day SBIRT PowerPoint Presentation

Full Day SBIRT Trainer Guide

Full Day SBIRT Fact Sheet

Participant Handout #1: Blank AUDIT Screening Tool

Participant Handout #2: Scored AUDIT Screening Tool

Participant Handout #3: Blank DAST Screening Tool

Good SBIRT Video Example

Bad SBIRT Video Example

Putting it all Together Video Example

The investigator, co-author Dawn Tyus, sought to learn about the realities, needs, strengths, and challenges of African American women in treatment and recovery. And she did it by asking women in long-term recovery about their own experiences and observations in treatment and early recovery, and about the wisdom they had earned through the years.

Those interviews yielded a wealth of knowledge, experience, and ideas for treatment and recovery support. They will form the backbone of a collection of guidelines for treatment and peer-based recovery support for African American women, to be published this year (2020) by the Southeast Addiction Technology Transfer Center (Southeast ATTC) at Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta. But first, this article introduces eleven extraordinary women and some of their early treatment and recovery experiences and lessons.

Substance use and substance use disorder remain significant public health crises. Substance use disorder, or addiction, is a stigmatized and misunderstood disease. Accessing contraception and abortion care is particularly challenging, as people who use substances or are diagnosed with substance use disorder often experience internalized stigma and overt discrimination within the healthcare system. There are limited recommendations for the clinical care of persons with substance use disorder who seek abortion or contraception care, and limited data to support these recommendations. This Society of Family Planning clinical recommendation addresses counseling and provision of contraception and abortion for persons who use substances or have substance use disorder. As there are almost no safety or efficacy data on contraception, abortion and substance use, the recommendations utilize extrapolations of substance use disorder-adjacent medical conditions when necessary.

Southern Plains Tribal Health Board developed this toolkit to assist tribal programs in determining how peer specialists can best serve their tribal organizations and communities. The information contained in this document provides an overview about the effectiveness of peer support programs, important core roles, and items to consider for implementing a successful peer program. Readers should keep in mind that program objectives of each tribal community are unique and should be adapted to accommodate the needs of the community.

The recent growth in peer-based recovery support services as an adjunct and alternative to addiction treatment has created heightened ambiguity about the demarcation of responsibilities across three roles: 1) voluntary service roles with communities of recovery, e.g., the role of the sponsor within Twelve Step programs, 2) clinicallyfocused addiction treatment specialists (e.g., certified addiction counselors, psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers), and 3) paid and volunteer recovery support specialists (e.g., recovery coaches, personal recovery assistants) working within addiction treatment institutions or free-standing recovery advocacy/support organizations. The purpose of this paper is to enhance understanding of these new recovery support roles by comparing and contrasting these three service roles.

With drug overdose deaths reaching record numbers, the American Medical Association (AMA) and Manatt Health released a toolkit today to guide states on removing barriers to evidence-based patient care.

Stakeholders in every state can use this new resource with legislators, regulators and other officials to pursue policies that are working to help patients. States have taken myriad approaches to expand treatment for patients with a substance use disorder, and the toolkit provides evidence and feedback on what’s working where and why.

During this virtual event, presenters discuss defining peer support roles and providing supervision to peer support staff to successfully incorporate peer support services into an organization

This curriculum, developed by the Oregon Regional Facilitation Center, is designed to cover ten best practices for peers who work in the child welfare field. These practices include establishing a connection with parents; supporting positive engagement in services; supporting compliance with child welfare; promoting self-efficacy; inspiring hope and serving as reunification role model; person-centered, trauma-informed services that evoke individual needs, objectives, and goals; advocating for patents with child welfare; guiding development of supportive relationships; guiding and teaching system navigation; and regulations, ethical conduct, and peer boundaries.

Very little has been written about SUD (Substance Use Disorder) Peer Supervision Competencies. In remedy, this competency analysis is offered, using a series of investigative protocols, including: a systematic review of the literature, DACUM (Developing A Curriculum) workgroup, quantitative peer and supervisor validation survey, and a managerial and administrative validation review. This competency analysis is specifically designed for training purposes. Competencies with specific KSA’s (Knowledge, Skills, and Attitudes) are described in checkboxes for classroom participant self- assessment.

This library provides an opportunity for staff to efficiently review multiple validated screening tools and identify those that are most appropriate for their settings. Each tool fact sheet includes information including substance(s) covered, audiences, mode of delivery, and evidence base to help HIV service delivery settings integrate substance use screening into their practice.

This library supports professionals in talking to clients about substance use in a respectful, non-judgmental, and validated manner. In doing so, it contributes to the main goal of the Strengthening Systems of Care for People with HIV and Opioid Use Disorder (OUD) project: to ensure that people with HIV and OUD have access to care, treatment, and recovery services that are client-centered and culturally responsive.

Whether you are new to peer support, or you have been working with peer support workers for some time, this toolkit is designed to address an often-forgotten aspect of peer work: effective supervision. This toolkit is aimed at helping people who are supervising and implementing peer roles to better understand peer support and its unique value proposition for mental health and addiction agencies so that they can support peer workers in unlocking the potential of this nascent profession in our communities.