Peer Specialist-Homeless Services

Pay

Annual salary range: $40,000 – $45,000.

Responsibilities

• Outreach/Engagement/Bridge Building: Facilitate engagement with teams by forging strong connections with participants and families, undertake outreach activities to promote community awareness of S:US services, encourage help-seeking, and serve as a bridge between team members and participants when they experience ambivalence about treatment.
• Relationship Building: Develop authentic, meaningful relationships with individuals and families through empathy, sharing experiences, listening, and collaborating with genuine curiosity and interest.
• Embracing Creative Narratives: Understand, share, and discuss multiple frameworks for understanding life experiences (such as psychosis) with participants and the team; intentionally use language to listen, understand, and make space for complex personal stories of recovery and resilience.
• Advocacy: Advocate with and for program participants both in the larger community and on the team.
• Co-Creating Support and Wellness Tools: Collaborate with participants to clarify their personal visions and develop their wellness toolkit; support participants in strengthening self-awareness, building life skills, and connecting to resources and community outside the S:US team.
• Influencing Team Culture: Positively influence team culture by advocating for clients, promoting a youth-friendly approach, encouraging recovery-oriented language, and helping build an environment that operates from a belief in human potential to grow and an understanding of human diversity.
• Team Communication: Maintain open and frequent communication with the team, including reporting safety and other concerns; keep required notes on visits with participants, with co-collaboration on reporting encouraged in the spirit of peer support.

Qualifications

• High School Diploma or GED, or 2 years of experience working in a large residential/institutional setting with a special needs population.
• Strong interpersonal and organizational skills.
• Patience, creativity, flexibility, compassion, and sensitivity to persons with mental health and substance abuse issues and criminal court involvement.
• NYS Driver’s License preferred.

Benefits

• Medical, dental, prescription, vision, and life insurance
• 403(b) retirement plan
• Credit union
• Flexible spending accounts (FSAs)
• Short- and long-term disability
• Transportation plan
• Generous paid vacations and holidays

Location: East 31 Street, New York, NY 10016 (in-person).