A bipartisan bill was introduced Tuesday in an effort to provide a “lifeline” to meet a workforce shortage in the mental health field.
The bill was sponsored by U.S. Sens. Tim Kaine (D-VA) and Jim Banks (R-IN), members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee.
The Providing Empathetic and Effective Recovery (PEER) Support Act would support mental health care and substance use disorder recovery.
Specifically, the bill would elevate peer support specialists, individuals with lived experience with a mental health condition or substance use disorder, who are certified to assist individuals and their families in recovery through advocacy, relationship and community building, resource sharing, mentorship, goal setting and more.
The bill is a step in the right direction, but the need for more qualified behavioral health professionals extends far beyond the need for peer support specialists.
Workforce challenges filling mental-health jobs
In Virginia, funding has been provided statewide to address the behavioral health crisis with an emphasis on observation and crisis stabilization units as well mobile response units. While some localities have equipment and funding, filling the positions remains a challenge.
In a previous interview with AFP, Valley Community Services Board Executive Director Kimberly McClanahan said it will be challenging to fill all of the open positions for a planned behavioral health crisis center in the region to be fully staffed when it opens.
Peer support specialists are often critical roles in a crisis observation unit.
There is also a growing demand for mental health professionals.
McClanahan told AFP that VCSB has the infrastructure in place for a mobile crisis unit, i.e. vehicles, and they had peer support folks to support it, but they were having difficulty securing the mental-health professionals to do the important work in homes. Unfortunately, she said, until there is more value placed on what CSBs and mental health professionals do, that will continue to be the case.
“I don’t think that people are going into behavioral health professions as much, and we’re seeing that,” she said. “My best guess is that it’s not a very lucrative field to go in, so unless you have a passion for the work, it’s not as appealing as going into computer science or business or whatever, where you’re going to make twice as much.
“I think until we put our money, in my opinion, where it needs to be, which is in human services and helping humans, then we’re going to continue to have that struggle, and particularly as people older like me, we’re graying out of the workforce, and as that’s happening, we are not being replaced with the young ones.”
Peer support specialists ‘play important role’ in treatment teams
Peer support specialists have been shown to decrease substance use for individuals with substance use disorders and reduce re-hospitalization for individuals with mental health conditions. However, they often face significant barriers to entering or staying in the profession.
The PEER Support Act would help remove these workforce barriers, address workforce shortages in the field and support access to mental health and substance use disorder treatment.
“Peer support specialists play an important role in mental health and substance use disorder treatment teams, and provide valuable support to individuals in recovery,” said Kaine. “At a time where we need to expand access to mental health care and substance use disorder treatment, this bipartisan legislation is critical to helping peer support specialists enter the field.”
One in five, or 52 million adults, have a mental health condition, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center.
“We believe the reintroduction of the PEER Support Act is a critical step toward addressing the shortage of behavioral health workers in this country,” said Michele Stockwell, president of Bipartisan Policy Center Action.
Mental Health America of Virginia supports the bill and believes peer support specialists are a lifeline to those who are in crisis.
“Trained peer supporters make an incredible difference in helping people recover, and this bill positions peer support specialists to be a lifeline throughout the behavioral health care system,” said Bruce Curser, executive director of MHAV.
Nationwide, the Trump administration appears to be abandoning mental health and substance use disorder treatment and services.
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration has been shut down as part of a restructuring combining four additional agencies into one office named the Administration for a Healthy America, or AHA.
One in 10 mental health staff members were reported to have lost their jobs due to cuts made by the administration to eliminate so-called “waste.” Many of those who were fired included probationary workers and members of communications teams, including those responsible for promoting access to the 988 crisis lifeline.
The American Society of Addiction Medicine said in a statement that it is “deeply concerned” about the administration’s potential to deprioritize addiction care services within the Department of Health & Human Services.
“Any weakening of centralized substance use disorder expertise within HHS would be cause for alarm, especially amidst the ongoing deadly addiction and overdose crisis,” the group said.
Breaking down the proposed legislation
The PEER Support Act would:
- Train, educate and support the professional development of peer support specialists in the workforce
- Research and publish best practice recommendations for the training, certification and supervision of peer support specialists for entities that employ these professionals
- Recommend career pathways for peer support specialists
- Provide leadership in the identification of new and emerging issues related to recovery support services
The bill would instruct the Department of Health and Human Services and Department of Justice to conduct a study to research states’ screening processes for prospective peer support specialists that may pose undue barriers to their certification and provide evidence-based recommendations for overcoming those barriers.
For example, some prospective peer support specialists cannot get a license because of their past interactions with law enforcement related to their substance use disorder, such as convictions for possession of drugs that occurred prior to recovery.
The bill also directs the Office of Management and Budget to revise the standard occupational classification system to recognize peer support specialists as a workforce profession, which would help ensure accurate data reporting on the field.
Support for the PEER Support Act
- American Association for Psychoanalysis in Clinical Social Work
- American Association on Health and Disability
- American Association of Suicidality
- American Foundation for Suicide Prevention
- American Psychological Association Services
- Anxiety & Depression Association of America
- Ballad Health
- Bipartisan Policy Center
- Children and Adults with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder
- Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance
- Face and Voices of Recovery
- Fountain House
- International Society for Psychiatric Mental Health Nurses
- Lakeshore Foundation
- Mental Health America
- Maternal Mental Health Leadership Alliance
- NAADAC
- Association for Addiction Professionals
- National Alliance on Mental Illness
- National Association for Peer Supporters
- National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors
- National Council for Mental Wellbeing
- National Federation of Families
- Overdose Prevention Initiative
- Policy Center for Maternal Mental Health
- Psychotherapy Action Network
- RI International
- SMART Recovery
- Trust for America’s Health
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Crystal Graham
