Lead Peer Specialist

About the role

This Lead Peer Specialist position may only be filled with a Veteran that meets statutory requirements listed in the qualifications section. This position is part of the Veterans Crisis Line (VCL).

Responsibilities

• Leads a team comprised of Peer Specialists and may lead Without Compensation (WOC) peer support employees, within a common supervisory structure, to provide services, integrate processes, and meet goals of peer support service programming at the facility.
• Ensures that the organization's strategic plan, mission, vision, and values are communicated to the peer support staff they lead and integrated into the team's strategies, goals, objectives, work plans, products, and services.
• Articulates and communicates to the peer support staff they lead the assignments, projects, problems to be solved, actionable events, milestones, and/or program issues under review as well as the deadlines and time frames for completion.
• Coaches the peer support staff they lead in the selection and application of appropriate problem-solving methods and techniques, provides advice on work methods, practices, and procedures, and assists the team and/or individual members in identifying the parameters of viable solutions.
• Maintains awareness of the status and progress of peer support staff's work and makes day-to-day adjustments to ensure their work aligns with program goals and processes.
• Leads the team in identifying, distributing, and balancing workload and tasks in accordance with established workflow, skill level, and/or occupational specialization, makes adjustments to accomplish the workload in accordance with established priorities to ensure timely accomplishment of assigned team tasks, and ensures that each team member has an integral role in developing the final team products and services.
• Serves as a coach, facilitator, and/or negotiator in coordinating team initiatives and in consensus building activities among team members.
• Maintains working knowledge of treatments and services available for the purpose of appropriate referrals.
• Serves as a representative of the team in dealings with the supervisor for the purpose of obtaining resources (e.g., computer hardware and software, use of overtime or compensatory time), and securing needed information or decisions from the supervisor on major work problems and issues that arise.
• Participates in the service, training, consultation, and other professional activities of VA health care services and functions as a fully vested member of the multidisciplinary team.
• Uses personal recovery experiences to model coping techniques and recovery tools to coach Veterans on relevant skills needed for self-management of their health condition(s) and pursuit of their personal wellness.
• Observes behaviors that might indicate difficulty adapting or responding to treatment (e.g., missed assessment appointments, failure to attend or maintain abstinence, risk to self or others, disruptive behavior), completes appropriate documentation, and reports concerns to the treatment team in a timely manner.
• Uses ongoing individual and group meetings to teach Veterans how to identify and combat negative self-talk and overcome fears by providing a forum that allows Veterans to share their experiences.
• Informs Veterans about VA and community support and resources, including how to effectively utilize them in the recovery and wellness process.
• Maintains knowledge of current trends and developments in holistic approaches in wellness and recovery by reading books, journals, and other relevant materials.
• Performs other related duties as assigned.

Requirements

Basic Requirements: To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement, 07/23/2026. Time-In-Grade Requirement: Applicants who are current Federal employees and have held a GS grade any time in the past 52 weeks must also meet time-in-grade requirements by the closing date of this announcement. For a GS-10 position, you must have served 52 weeks at the GS-9. The grade may have been in any occupation but must have been held in the Federal service. An SF-50 that shows your time-in-grade eligibility must be submitted with your application materials. If the most recent SF-50 has an effective date within the past year, it may not clearly demonstrate you possess one-year time-in-grade, as required by the announcement. In this instance, you must provide an additional SF-50 that clearly demonstrates one-year time-in-grade. Note: Time-In-Grade requirements also apply to former Federal employees applying for reinstatement as well as current employees applying for Veterans Employment Opportunities Act of 1998 (VEOA) appointment.

Specialized Experience: In addition to the basic requirements, you must have at least one (1) full year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the next lower grade level (GS-09) in the Federal Service that is directly related to the work of the position and has equipped you with the particular knowledge, skills, and abilities to successfully perform the duties as a Lead Peer Specialist. Qualifying specialized experience includes post-personal mental health recovery experience as a mentor providing support to others in mental health and/or addiction recovery, a recovery advocate directly involved with consumers of mental health services, or equivalent work involving in-person communication to support others in mental health recovery. At this level, work will have been performed with considerable independence and you are responsible for making recommendations to the interdisciplinary treatment team that can be relied on for soundness of judgment and maturity of insight on problem cases.

Qualifications

To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement, 07/23/2026. Time-In-Grade Requirement: Applicants who are current Federal employees and have held a GS grade any time in the past 52 weeks must also meet time-in-grade requirements by the closing date of this announcement. For a GS-10 position, you must have served 52 weeks at the GS-9. The grade may have been in any occupation but must have been held in the Federal service. An SF-50 that shows your time-in-grade eligibility must be submitted with your application materials. If the most recent SF-50 has an effective date within the past year, it may not clearly demonstrate you possess one-year time-in-grade, as required by the announcement. In this instance, you must provide an additional SF-50 that clearly demonstrates one-year time-in-grade. Note: Time-In-Grade requirements also apply to former Federal employees applying for reinstatement as well as current employees applying for Veterans Employment Opportunities Act of 1998 (VEOA) appointment.

Specialized Experience: In addition to the basic requirements, you must have at least one (1) full year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the next lower grade level (GS-09) in the Federal Service that is directly related to the work of the position and has equipped you with the particular knowledge, skills, and abilities to successfully perform the duties as a Lead Peer Specialist. Qualifying specialized experience includes post-personal mental health recovery experience as a mentor providing support to others in mental health and/or addiction recovery, a recovery advocate directly involved with consumers of mental health services, or equivalent work involving in-person communication to support others in mental health recovery. At this level, work will have been performed with considerable independence and you are responsible for making recommendations to the interdisciplinary treatment team that can be relied on for soundness of judgment and maturity of insight on problem cases.