Support from someone who understands the road you're on.
Sometimes it helps to talk with someone who doesn’t just understand mental health challenges professionally, but has experienced them personally. Peer Support connects you with a trained and certified specialist who can draw from their own lived experience with mental health challenges and recovery to provide encouragement, practical support, and hope.
At Calm Waters Counseling, peer support can work alongside counseling and other behavioral health services to help eligible clients build skills, work toward recovery goals, and feel less alone in the process.
What Is Peer Support?
Lived experience can be a powerful kind of support.
A Certified Peer Support Specialist, or CPSS, is someone who has their own experience with mental health challenges and recovery and has completed specialized training to help others. They aren’t there to tell you exactly what to do or assume that their experience is the same as yours.
Instead, peer specialists use what they have learned through their own recovery, combined with professional training, to help you identify strengths, build confidence, develop practical strategies, and keep moving toward your goals. Sometimes simply working with someone who can genuinely say, “I understand how difficult this can be,” makes it easier to feel hopeful about what comes next.
How Can Peer Support Help?
- Build confidence and independence
- Develop routines and coping skills
- Work toward recovery goals
- Strengthen problem-solving and self-advocacy
- Build community and reduce isolation
- Stay motivated through challenges
Peer support isn't about having someone solve your problems for you.
Peer support is about having someone alongside you who can encourage progress, share perspective, and help you build on your strengths.
What Does Peer Support Look Like?
Practical support for real life. Every person's needs are different, so peer support won't look exactly the same for everyone. Your peer specialist may work with you on things such as:
Setting Recovery Goals
You can identify what you would like to change and break larger goals into realistic, manageable steps.
Building Confidence
Mental health challenges can affect how you see yourself and what you believe you're capable of. Peer support can help you recognize strengths and rebuild confidence.
Practicing Coping Strategies
Your specialist can help you find practical ways to manage difficult situations and reinforce skills you're learning through counseling.
Becoming More Independent
You may work on routines, decision making, communication, self-advocacy, or other skills that help you take a more active role in your life.
Connecting With Your Community
Peer support can encourage healthy relationships, community involvement, and the development of a stronger support network.
Staying Engaged in Recovery
Progress isn't always a straight line. A peer specialist can provide encouragement when setbacks happen and help you stay focused on what you're working toward.
Peer Support and Counseling Work Together
Peer Support does not replace counseling, but the two services can work well together. Your counselor focuses on assessing and treating mental health concerns, while your peer specialist uses lived experience, encouragement, and practical support to help you work toward recovery in everyday life.
For Example:
In counseling:
You and your therapist may identify challenges with confidence, coping, or managing symptoms.
Through Peer Support:
Your peer specialist can help you practice those skills, stay motivated, and work toward recovery goals outside of therapy.
Peer Support at a Glance
How Is It Different From Counseling?
Counseling is provided by a licensed mental health professional. Peer Support is provided by a trained and certified specialist who uses lived experience with mental health challenges and recovery to support you.
How Is It Different From CBRS?
Both may involve practical skill building, but CBRS is focused on functional skills related to your treatment plan. Peer Support brings the added perspective of someone with personal lived experience of recovery.
How Is It Different From Case Management?
Peer Support helps with recovery and skill building. Case Management connects you with resources. A peer specialist may help with confidence, coping, or self-advocacy, while a case manager may help with housing, transportation, community programs, and other services.
Paying for Peer Support Services
Eligibility and coverage for peer support depend on your individual circumstances and the behavioral health programs or funding available to you.
Because requirements can change and not every client qualifies for every service, our office can help you determine whether peer support is available and explain your next steps.
Frequently Asked Questions About Peer Support
No. Peer specialists do not provide psychotherapy. They provide recovery-focused support based on specialized training and their own lived experience with mental health challenges.
No. Peer support is based on shared experience with mental health challenges and recovery, but your specialist’s experiences do not have to be identical to yours.
Lived experience means that a peer specialist has personally experienced mental health challenges and recovery. That experience helps them provide a perspective that is different from traditional clinical services.
Depending on your needs and eligibility, yes. Peer support can complement counseling and other behavioral health services rather than replace them.
No. Both may involve skill building, but peer support is specifically provided by a Certified Peer Support Specialist whose own lived experience with mental health recovery is part of the service.
No. Peer support primarily focuses on recovery, encouragement, and skill building. Case management primarily helps clients identify and connect with community services and resources.
Interested in Peer Support?
Recovery doesn't have to happen alone. If you think working with someone who has lived experience could be helpful, talk with the Calm Waters team. We'll help you understand how peer support works, determine whether you may be eligible, and identify the next step.
