Substance use approaches among peer support specialists in community mental health early psychosis programs. Klodnick VV, LaPelusa B, Reznik SJ, Johnson RP, Myers NL, Lucksted A, Cohen DA, Lopez M.
Live workspace
Ask the licensed paper Source context
Objective Substance use (SU) is common among adolescents and young adults, including those experiencing early psychosis. Coordinated Specialty Care (CSC), a community-based multidisciplinary team-based service model, is increasingly used to support people experiencing first-episode psychosis. In addition to prescribers, clinicians, and vocational specialists, CSC includes peer support specialists who use their own living/lived experience with mental health and treatment to engage and support young people with their recovery goals. Peer support is also foundational in SU recovery. However, little is known about how peer support specialists navigate client SU in CSC. The purpose of this article is to detail CSC peer support SU practice. Method Informed by community-based participatory research methods, a PhD-level qualitative researcher and a former peer support specialist conducted virtual interviews with 20 CSC peer support specialists. A multidisciplinary team including researchers with lived mental health experiences thematically coded interview transcripts. Results A spectrum of CSC peer support specialist SU responses emerged: (a) leverages lived SU experiences; (b) does not explore SU with clients; (c) shares client SU information with the CSC team; (d) educates, mentors, and advocates; (e) shares SU consequences and/or challenges substance use; (f) nonjudgmental, nondirective SU exploration; and (g) promotes harm reduction. Conclusions and implications for practice CSC peer specialist SU practice is influenced by several contextual tensions that must be better understood and addressed in future research to improve peer SU practice. Study findings speak to practice nuances that are helpful for CSC peer support training and supervision. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).
How this agent works
It searches only this paper’s licensed source text, returns matching passages, and refuses to invent an answer when the record is silent.
Original journal Psychiatric rehabilitation journal
Published 2024-07-25
DOI 10.1037/prj0000612
Open record PMC12486147 The original authors and American Psychological Association do not endorse this journal or its agent. Verify findings in the canonical article before making consequential decisions.