PEER SPECIALIST

About the role

The Peer Specialist functions as an interdisciplinary team member, assisting physicians and other professional/non-professional personnel in a rehabilitation treatment program. Peer specialists perform a variety of therapeutic and supportive tasks that include assisting Veterans in articulating their goals for recovery and personal wellness, learning, and practicing new skills, helping them monitor their progress, assisting them in their treatment, modeling effective coping techniques and self-help strategies based on the peer specialist's own recovery experience, and supporting them in advocating for themselves to obtain effective services.

Responsibilities

• 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 to 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.
• Handles crisis interventions for Veterans and addresses other emergent situations without the benefit of specific instructions.
• Informs Veterans about VA and community supports and resources, including how to effectively utilize them in the recovery and wellness process.
• Maintains a working 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

• Must be able to operate a government furnished vehicle for purposes of assisting Veterans with obtaining and maintaining housing.

Benefits

• Full-time, Monday-Friday, 8:00 am-4:30 pm
• Compressed/Flexible: Not authorized
• Position Description/PD#: PEER SPECIALIST/PD99319, PD99320, PD99321, PD99322, PD99322S, PD99319S, PD99320S, and PD99321S
• Promotion Potential: Multi-grade career ladder

Qualifications

• To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement, 11/04/2026.
• BASIC REQUIREMENTS FOR PEER SPECIALISTS
• a. Statutory Requirements
• b. Length of Experience in Recovery
• c. Restricted to VETERANS
• d. Minimum Grade Level Qualifications
• e. Education Substitution
• f. Problem Solving
• g. Communication
• h. Teaches Others
• i. Experience