VitAL collaborates with Peer Support Specialists across the state to improve the lives of Alabamians with substance use disorders and mental health challenges. Peer Support Specialists have played a key role in extending services to justice-involved individuals that are pursuing recovery. VitAL collaborates with peer support specialists across the state to improve the lives of Alabamians who experiences substance use and mental health challenges. One Peer Support Specialist, Lyndsey Tillery, CRSS, who has been involved in Project Possibilities provides her experience working with the justice-involved in a community supervision setting.
VitAL: What is a Peer Support Specialist?
Lyndsey: Peer Support Specialists are individuals with lived experience with substance use and/or mental health who have been successful in the recovery process. Through mutual respect and understanding, Peer Support Specialists foster supportive and honest environments where they can use their lived experience to help their peers navigate their recovery journey.
VitAL: How can a Peer Support Specialist support individuals in the justice system?
Lyndsey: As Peer Support Specialists, we are here for anything our peers need. We act as a role model to help them navigate and access resources necessary for recovery and reentry processes. Providing emotional support for peers includes small things, such as talking on the phone and doing check-ins to see how they are doing. Beyond helping with resources, we also act as advocates for our peers by going to court with peers when they request, and in some cases talking to judges and/or defense attorneys on their behalf, many of which we have great relationships.
VitAL: What are some of the supports and resources a Peer Support Specialist provides to justice-involved peers?
Lyndsey: A Peer Support Specialist’s role within the criminal justice system is to offer justice-involved individuals support in every aspect of their journey, through mentorship and practical support. This includes housing, food, employment, emotional support, and providing transportation to treatment facilities or back to recovery housing. Encouragement and support can range from talking to a peer about needed services, a family member about needed services, or the family member trying to understand what is going on with their loved one. Peer Support Specialists talk to therapists, probation officers, attorneys, family members, and friends to support individuals from all angles.
VitAL: How do Peer Support Specialists impact individual’s health outcomes?
Lyndsey: In general, when individuals receive peer support, they take better care of themselves because they have the support and resources necessary to do so, and usually, they must be “healthy” to enter treatment. We provide access to MAT/MAR, provide harm reduction strategies such as Narcan training for participants in the community supervision setting that I work in and help them with accessing and utilizing resources. The social support that we provide also generally improves their overall quality of life including mental, physical, and emotional health.
VitAL: How can a Peer Support Specialist help to reduce stigma in the justice system?
Lyndsey: A Peer Support Specialist’s job pretty much revolves around reducing stigma, especially in my role working with justice-involved individuals and engaging with individuals who may think or say things like “lock them up”. I am there to CHALLENGE this by advocating on behalf of my peers, pushing for them to have the opportunity to go to treatment. When incarceration is deemed necessary, I still advocate for their chance to get into therapy and break down the stigma that they are facing.
VitAL would like to thank Lyndsey and all Peer Support Specialists for their work with this population! Peer Support Specialists provide vital supports such as mentorship, advocacy, and unwavering support to justice-involved individuals and their families in an effort to reduce recidivism through empathetic care and tangible, boots on the ground support.