The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) through SAMHSA’s GAINS Center for Behavioral Health and Justice Transformation recently convened a group of peer leaders to develop a draft set of core competencies specifically for individuals providing peer support in criminal justice settings.

The draft set of core competencies builds upon SAMHSA’s previous work – via its Bringing Recovery Supports to Scale Technical Assistance Center Strategy (BRSS TACS) – to develop core competencies for peer workers in behavioral health services. The new draft set of core competencies is in addition to the existing core competencies and is specific to individuals providing peer support in criminal justice settings.

SAMHSA would like to give the public an opportunity to review and comment on each of the additional draft core competencies. We encourage you to print and review the Draft Core Competencies for Peers Working in Criminal Justice Settings and a hard copy of the Public Comment Form before you respond. These documents will provide you with additional details regarding this effort and will hopefully answer many of questions that you may have. The better you understand this effort, the more prepared you will be to provide meaningful feedback that will help guide the final set of core competencies for individuals providing peer support in criminal justice settings. 

The public comment period will be open through August 25, 2017.