Certified Recovery Peer Advocate
Case Study
Certified Recovery Peer Advocate
Though peers have been part of care models in New York and across the country for many years, peer work has traditionally been left out of the wider healthcare delivery system, lacking sustained integration into care teams or healthcare financing models.
Broadly, a peer support worker is a non-clinical worker who is trained and employed to use their personal lived experience with a particular health condition to support others living with the same health condition on their treatment journey.
In 2015, the NYS Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services (OASAS) announced new statewide certification and educational criteria to qualify peer support workers who work with those with a substance use diagnosis—known as Certified Recovery Peer Advocates (CRPA). CRPA services thereafter became reimbursable by NYS Medicaid at an increased rate, enabling providers to begin employing them at greater scale and through more sustainable payment mechanisms.
Training Program Design & Evaluation
After learning of this opportunity and hearing from our partners about their challenges in finding qualified talent, NYACH worked with the NYC Department of Small Business Services and a wide array of experts to build the state’s first comprehensive training model for CRPAs. To ensure the training was high quality and authentic to the peer role while meeting industry needs, NYACH collaborated with partners from NYS OASAS, NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH), the Peer Network of New York, Queensborough Community College (QCC), and dozens of hospital and community-based behavioral health providers.
The resulting training model prepared participants for certification exams, offered opportunities to earn college credits, and launched careers in the growing field of behavioral health for individuals with nontraditional employment histories, many with experiences of substance use and/or interactions with the criminal justice system. Graduates of the program were hired across the city, helping patients struggling with substance use through recovery. Through a special partnership, NYC Health + Hospitals hired many trainees to pilot a new staffing model integrating CRPAs in their emergency department, which you can read about in the program evaluation.
Learn More
Read more about the CRPA program in our 10-Year Anniversary Report, and in our 2019 industry brief that captures learnings shared from a NYACH-hosted conference.