Peer Support Specialist

Peer Support Specialist Make a Difference Helping Young Adults in Transition! The Peer Support Specialist utilizes lived experience and peer support principles to engage, mentor, advocate for, and support young adults (ages 18-24) who have a diagnosis of a mental illness in achieving their goals related to independent living, community integration, wellness, education, employment, and recovery. Services are provided in the home, community, and office settings. The Peer Support Specialist fosters hope, self-advocacy, and empowerment while connecting individuals to community resources and supports.  Duties include: • Engage the young adults in a respectful, strength-based, and culturally competent manner.  Build trusting, supportive relationships with clients using a strength-based, recovery-oriented, trauma-informed approach. • Assist clients in identifying strengths, needs, goals, and barriers related to independent living, education, employment, social engagement, housing stability, wellness, and recovery. Collaborate with clients to develop and implement individualized support plans and recovery goals. • Provide peer mentoring, encouragement, advocacy, and wellness coaching to promote self-sufficiency and community integration. • Support clients in developing daily living skills, including budgeting, medication management, personal wellness, household management, transportation, and community participation. Provide support and counseling focusing on psychoeducation, skill building, rehabilitative counseling, money management, medication management, and work or school readiness to individuals. • Assist clients in accessing and utilizing community resources, including behavioral health, medical, educational, vocational, housing, legal, and social service programs. Assess needs related to food, clothing, household items, transportation, and other basic necessities and facilitate access to available resources. • Conduct home, community, and office-based visits, including apartment and wellness checks as appropriate. • Facilitate or co-facilitate psychoeducational and skill-building groups that promote recovery, independent living, and community participation. • Identify potential crisis situations and assist clients in developing crisis prevention and response plans. Provide on-call crisis intervention services on a rotating schedule. Always act to ensure client’s safety, readily assesses needs, provide support and interventions as needed and secure crisis interventions in urgent situations. • Maintain an Electronic Case Record for each client on the assigned caseload.  Complete all paperwork in a professional, accurate and timely manner. • Mohawk's programs and offices are multi-level with stairs only.  All employees must be able to travel to all levels of the facility in a safe and reasonable time frame.  Client services in the community include visits to clients’ apartments which can be on the second and third floors. • Provide transportation to clients when necessary, using agency vehicles. Employees must have access and be willing to use their personal vehicle to attend client/member meetings in the community and meetings outside the office/program. Skills/Qualifications for the Peer Specialist include: • Certified Recovery Peer Advocate (CRPA) or Certified Peer Specialist (CPS). Provisional certification will be considered if in the process of obtaining permanent certification. • Minimum of two years of human services experience preferred, including experience working with young adults. • Strong interpersonal, communication, advocacy, and relationship-building skills. • Excellent organizational, documentation, problem-solving, and time-management abilities. • Valid and insurable NYS driver's license. Must have a personal vehicle to use for business purposes.