Peer Counselor - PACT

The Peer Counselor is an integral member of the PACT (Program of Assertive Community Treatment) team, delivering recovery-oriented services through outreach and interventions in community settings, including clients’ homes and other environments of their choosing. Using lived experience, this role supports client stabilization, psychiatric rehabilitation, and recovery by providing individualized, strengths-based services that promote engagement, skill development, independent living, and connection to community resources. The Peer Counselor contributes to a shared caseload model, offers consultation from a lived experience perspective, supports families and natural supports as appropriate, and serves as a liaison to community providers. This position participates in crisis intervention and stabilization services under the supervision of the Program Manager and is part of the team’s rotating on-call schedule to ensure continuity of care and 24/7 coverage consistent with PACT fidelity standards.

Responsibilities:

• Meets weekly with the designated Peer Approved Supervisor and as needed for consultation.
• Provides the team with expertise and consultation from a mental health consumer perspective regarding clients’ experiences with mental illness symptoms, the effects and side effects of medications, perspectives on treatment, and the recovery process.
• Acts as an interpreter to help non-mental health consumer team members better understand and empathize with each client’s unique and subjective experiences and perceptions.
• Collaborates with the team to promote a culture in which each client’s point of view, experiences, and preferences are recognized, understood, and respected, and in which client self-determination and decision-making in treatment planning are maximized and supported.
• Provides strengths-based, client-centered, goal-oriented, and supportive services to help clients develop interests, independent living skills, and personal identity outside of the mental health system.
• Helps clients and team members identify, understand, and combat stigma and discrimination associated with mental illness.
• Assists with transportation, psychosocial support, and activities of daily living.
• Assists with linking clients to and accessing community resources for basic needs, including housing, behavioral health services, education, financial support, vocational services, and transportation as needed.
• Provides continuity of care in support of established client/therapist relationships and best practices, and coordinates care with internal and external providers with a Release of Information.
• Completes appropriate documentation for services provided within required timeframes.
• Establishes and maintains working relationships with Catholic Charities staff, community resources, and other providers.
• Coordinates consumer treatment with other providers and initiates referrals to medical providers and other community resources when appropriate.
• Reports and documents all services in the Electronic Medical Record, as well as in other contractually required systems, and maintains contact logs on a Google spreadsheet.
• Attends all required individual supervision, group supervision, staff meetings, clinical trainings, and other trainings or community meetings as requested.
• Performs other duties as assigned.