Peer Specialist Career Mobility and Advancement: Opportunities and Barriers

Thousands of peer specialists are certified in most states, the District of Columbia, and the Veterans Affairs system. Viable career paths, progressive compensation, and career development strategies are essential to sustain the peer workforce. Faculty will present results from recent national peer career development surveys with over 800 peer specialist respondents. Key topics include peer responsibilities; supervision, mentoring and career development encouragement; continuing and higher education; perceived organizational climate and culture impact on peer specialists’ work and career advancement; comparisons of peer-run and non-peer-run organizations. We will discuss implications of the findings for peer career development policy, practice and research.