For Peer Support Workers: Facilitating MOUD Within Primary and Other Care Settings
As a peer support worker, you play a vital role in assisting individuals in need of services for a substance use disorder (SUD) to understand that they can improve their health and wellness and achieve recovery. As a person in recovery, you can provide guidance, advice, encouragement, and support based on your own experience.
As a peer support worker, you enhance recovery by offering lived-experience mentorship, which reduces return to use rates (from 24%–33% down to 7% in some studies), improves treatment adherence, decreases stigma, and increases engagement.
Your involvement as a peer support worker benefits individuals in SUD treatment by increasing treatment motivation, engagement and retention, improving relationships with treatment providers, family members, and social supports, and increasing satisfaction and confidence.
You can help individuals understand that there are many different pathways to recovery, including the use of medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD). Helping them to find a treatment plan that meets their individual needs is crucial in achieving their treatment and recovery goals.
The Role of Peer Support Workers
There are various pathways to recovery. The use of Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD), including buprenorphine, methadone, and naltrexone, is one component of an evidence-based care plan that also includes counseling, behavioral therapies, and medical and social services to meet the needs of each individual.
With the elimination of the DATA-Waiver (X-Waiver), individuals seeking MOUD now have expanded access to buprenorphine through primary care and other non-specialty settings. As a peer support worker, your lived experience uniquely positions you to connect with people on a deeper level, fostering acceptance, breaking down emotional barriers, reducing stigma, and providing the critical support needed for them to engage in treatment and recovery.
Resources
- What Are Peer Recovery Support Services? explains peer recovery support services designed and delivered by people in recovery from substance use disorders.
- Peer Support (PDF | 1.2 MB) brochure provides information on what is peer support.
- Consumer-Operated Services Evidence-Based Practices (EBP) KIT explains peer recovery support services designed and delivered by people in recovery from substance use disorders.
- Value of Peers (PDF | 1.6 MB) describes how peer supports advance recovery and their value to behavioral health systems. Peer Support provides a succinct summary of peer support and their roles.
- Peer Support Specialists: A Growing Mental Health and Addictions Workforce describes benefits and evidence-based practice of peer support services.
- Family Peer Support Services: Broadening the View summarizes the experiences, insights, suggestions, and concerns shared by participants in Family Peer Support.
- Consumer Guide: How Can a Peer Specialist Support My Recovery From Problematic Substance Use? For People Seeking Recovery provides people with past or current problematic substance use a straightforward exploration of the roles, values, and work environments of professional peer specialists. This guide is a comprehensive resource that will help readers understand who professional peer specialists are, what they do in various work settings, and how to access and pay for their services.
- For an overview of the current landscape of peer recovery programs, take a look at SAMHSA’s Financing Peer Recovery Support: Opportunities to Enhance the Substance Use Disorder Workforce. This report provides a description of the variation in peer recovery rates, supervision, credentialing, and SUD versus mental health.
- What Are Peer Recovery Support Services? explains peer recovery support services designed and delivered by people in recovery from substance use disorders.
- Peer Support (PDF | 1.2 MB) brochure provides information on what is peer support.
- Consumer-Operated Services Evidence-Based Practices (EBP) KIT explains peer recovery support services designed and delivered by people in recovery from substance use disorders.
- Value of Peers (PDF | 1.6 MB) describes how peer supports advance recovery and their value to behavioral health systems. Peer Support provides a succinct summary of peer support and their roles.
- Peer Support Specialists: A Growing Mental Health and Addictions Workforce describes benefits and evidence-based practice of peer support services.
- Family Peer Support Services: Broadening the View summarizes the experiences, insights, suggestions, and concerns shared by participants in Family Peer Support.
- Consumer Guide: How Can a Peer Specialist Support My Recovery From Problematic Substance Use? For People Seeking Recovery provides people with past or current problematic substance use a straightforward exploration of the roles, values, and work environments of professional peer specialists. This guide is a comprehensive resource that will help readers understand who professional peer specialists are, what they do in various work settings, and how to access and pay for their services.
- For an overview of the current landscape of peer recovery programs, take a look at SAMHSA’s Financing Peer Recovery Support: Opportunities to Enhance the Substance Use Disorder Workforce. This report provides a description of the variation in peer recovery rates, supervision, credentialing, and SUD versus mental health.
Integrating MOUD into Peer Support Services
Explore Peer Certification
SAMHSA has collaborated with federal, state, tribal, territorial, and local partners, including peer support workers, to develop the National Model Standards for Peer Support Certification, inclusive of substance use, mental health, and family peer certifications. These National Model Standards closely align with the needs of the peer workforce, and subsequently, the overarching goal of the national behavioral health strategy. Learn more about the standards at SAMHSA’s National Model Standards for Peer Support Certification webpage.
Engage Peers in MOUD
- Warm handoffs – Facilitate smooth transitions to treatment by accompanying peers (if possible) to their first appointments with MOUD prescribers.
- Ongoing support – Help facilitate continuous support through follow-ups, peer-to-peer counseling, and connecting people with peer support groups.