Peer specialists have different roles from the roles traditionally played by clinicians, counsellors and rehabilitation personnel. Helping People Connect to the Religious Congregations and Spiritual Groups of Their Choice: The Role of Peer Specialists looks at the roles that peer specialists can play in helping facilitate connections to the religious and/or spiritual congregations that are part of the fabric of every community’s life. This document provides a half-dozen recommendations that peer specialists can use to help them define the role they can play in this arena and assist them in finding the resources they need to do so.
The first three emphasize the importance of starting conversations on the topic – within your agency, with the people you serve, and with religious and spiritual groups in your community. The second three focus on making the connections you need to ensure that the people you serve become a part of the faith and fellowship groups that they believe can make a substantial difference in the quality of their lives. This document also gives guidelines for managing the challenges individual peer specialists or groups of peer specialists can do to ease the new role of connecting the people served to the religious and/or spiritual groups of their choice.