Peer Support Specialist

Description

About Wellness Equity Alliance

Wellness Equity Alliance is a national multidisciplinary health organization that designs and delivers integrated, community-based care for populations most impacted by health inequities. We do this through mobile and field-based models, providing medical care, behavioral health services, substance use treatment, harm reduction, and care coordination in nontraditional settings such as encampments, schools, reentry sites, and rural communities, as well as with sovereign tribal nations. Grounded in trauma-informed, culturally responsive, and data-driven practices, WEA combines clinical expertise, lived experience, and advanced population health analytics to reduce barriers to care, improve continuity, and strengthen local systems. We have partnered with more than 60 public agencies, managed care plans, and community-based organizations across the U.S. to implement scalable, sustainable programs that are advancing health equity and improving outcomes for historically marginalized populations.

We are known as Renegades, Rebels, Disruptors, and Dreamers. If that sounds like you, we want you on our team.

About the Role

The Peer Support Specialist (PSS) draws on lived experience with mental health and/or substance use recovery to provide non-clinical peer support to members in crisis at the Behavioral Health Crisis Walk-In Center (CWIC), located on the behavioral health campus of Riverside University Health System in Indio, CA. The PSS is part of the interdisciplinary behavioral health team and promotes engagement, hope, recovery, wellness, self-advocacy, and community integration.

Services are recovery-oriented, person-centered, culturally informed, trauma-informed, and grounded in harm reduction. The PSS works alongside licensed clinical staff and practices within Medi-Cal Peer Support Services requirements, California certification standards, and WEA policy.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

• Build rapport with members and engage them through appropriate use of lived experience.
• Provide emotional support, encouragement, hope, and recovery-oriented coaching.
• Help members identify personal strengths, recovery goals, coping strategies, and wellness supports.
• Support the development and reinforcement of individualized safety and wellness plans.
• Help members navigate behavioral health, medical, housing, social service, and community resources.
• Facilitate warm handoffs to outpatient treatment, community-based organizations, and recovery support services.
• Promote self-advocacy, self-determination, and member engagement in treatment planning.
• Provide peer support during crisis stabilization and recovery planning.
• Support the therapeutic milieu through engagement, observation, and recovery-oriented interaction.
• Share relevant observations with licensed clinical staff as a member of the interdisciplinary team.
• Assist with psychoeducation, recovery groups, wellness activities, and peer-led support groups.
• Document peer support services and member interactions in the electronic health record (EHR).
• Immediately notify the supervising clinician or licensed provider of safety concerns, including suicidal or homicidal ideation, behavioral escalation, medical instability, intoxication or withdrawal, and elopement risk.

Scope of Practice

This is a non-clinical position. The Peer Support Specialist does not assess, diagnose, or treat conditions; provide psychotherapy; administer medications; modify clinical treatment plans; place individuals on involuntary holds; or independently decide admission, discharge, or transfer.

Requirements

Required Qualifications

• Active California Medi-Cal Peer Support Specialist Certification issued by CalMHSA at time of hire, maintained in good standing throughout employment.
• Lived experience with mental health and/or substance use recovery, and the ability to share it appropriately to support others.
• Willingness to complete organizational orientation and annual competency validation.
• Willingness to complete training in crisis response, trauma-informed care, recovery-oriented practice, safety, confidentiality, documentation, and de-escalation.
• Ability to work within a defined non-clinical scope and escalate concerns to licensed staff promptly.
• Ability to document accurately in an electronic health record.
• Commitment to ongoing supervision, continuing education, and professional development.

Preferred Qualifications

• Parent Partner area of specialization.
• Bilingual in English and Spanish.
• Experience using an electronic health record for documentation.

Working Conditions

• The CWIC operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, as a voluntary, unlocked crisis stabilization setting.
• Staff may not use personal funds or resources to give members money, gifts, food, transportation, or other goods. Member needs are met through approved organizational resources.
• New hires review and sign the CWIC Peer Support Specialist Scope of Practice Acknowledgment.

Compensation

$30 - $34 per hour

Third-Party Recruiting Notice: Wellness Equity Alliance does not currently accept unsolicited resumes or candidate submissions from third-party recruiters, staffing agencies, search firms, or other external recruiting vendors. Please do not contact hiring managers or members of our People & Culture team regarding recruitment services unless you have an existing agreement with WEA.

Any unsolicited resumes or candidate information submitted without a current, authorized agreement will be considered the property of Wellness Equity Alliance, and no placement fee or other compensation will be owed in connection with any resulting hire.

We appreciate your understanding and cooperation.