Sunday, May 18, 2025
5/18/2025
Opioid-Impacted Family Support Program - Summary of Project: The state of peer recovery support specialist training in Maryland is ununified, leaving anyone who wants to become a certified peer nearly directionless. A prospective new peer in Maryland must seek out privately provided, expensive workshops that have little continuity of content, training approach, or scheduling. Few of these providers have aligned their content domains or training hours to the State standards, and many make their training opportunities available only to their own employees. There exists no single, comprehensive Certified Peer Recovery Specialist training program in the state of Maryland, including all components of didactic and on-the-job training. Situated in a community with one of the highest needs in the nation and with a more than thirty-year track record of providing exceptional behavioral health training, the Community College of Baltimore County (CCBC) poised to meet this need. CCBC will create an Opioid-Impacted Family Support Program to support training pre-certified peer recovery specialists as they become certified. After degree-credit programming, the peers will move on to a registered apprenticeship program. As the only state-wide, fully online or face-to-face, and National Addiction Studies Accreditation Commission training program in Maryland, CCBC will train and place 109 peer recovery support specialists to work within the medically underserved areas of Baltimore City and rural parts of the state, with peer recovery support specialists counseling children and families who experience and/or have family members experiencing substance/opioid use disorders. Trainees will complete experiential training on interprofessional teams at one of eighteen partner sites and graduate from the degree-certificate program (Level 1), earning 17 credit hours and receiving the educational experience necessary to attain certification as Peer Recovery Specialists by the State of Maryland. At least 55% of these 109 students (60) will matriculate into the apprenticeship program (Level 2), where they will increase skills over 144 clock hours learning ethics and principles of harm reduction, conflict resolution and de-escalation, soft skills training, and a certification review. At the end of Level 2, the peer recovery specialists will have enough time working under supervision to sit for their CPRS Certification. Both Level 1 and Level 2 trainees will receive stipends for their participation. Level 1 trainees will receive a tuition waiver of $2,950. The National Center on Substance Abuse and Child Welfare suggests that substance-involved families in the child welfare system experience lower family reunification rates and longer out-of-home placement than those families who are not substance-involved. They point to the use of peer recovery support specialists as a means to address these unique needs, illustrating the benefits through four programs in Connecticut, Illinois, Kentucky, and California. The positive outcomes included: improved treatment and recovery rates, fewer out home placements, and improved family reunification rates. They suggest that peers can be most effective as advocates to navigate the interplay between child protective services and substance use disorder treatment systems as an important task in a recovery-oriented system of care. They found that the presence of a peer in that system reduced referral lags, improved service initiation rates, and increased access to treatment. Objectives: (1) train and certify 109 Level 1 trainees. (2) train and certify 60 Level 2 apprentices. (3) 90% of Level 1 trainees secure employment after receiving certification. (4) 55% of Level 1 trainees matriculate into Level 2. Funding Priority: CCBC requests funding priority based upon Eligibility Criteria One – at least 50% of prior supported Opioid-Impacted Family Support Program participants went on to work in medically underserved communities.
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).