Peer Specialist - ORCA Center

Description

Title: Peer Specialist, ORCA

Shift: Day

Days Off: Saturday, Sunday

Supervised by: ORCA Peer Supervisor

Insurance Benefits: Medical (no premiums/payroll deductions for employee coverage), Dental, Life, Long-term Disability

Other Benefits: Employee Assistance Program (EAP), Flexible Spending Account (FSA), ORCA card subsidy, Paid Time Off (255 hours per year), Retirement Plan

Union Representation: This position is a part of a union and is represented by SEIU Healthcare 1199NW.

A cover letter is required as part of your application to be considered for this role.

About DESC:

DESC (Downtown Emergency Service Center) is a nonprofit organization working to help people with the complex needs of homelessness, substance use disorders, and serious mental illness achieve their highest potential for health and well-being through comprehensive services, treatment, and housing. Our vision is a community where no person is abandoned, ignored, or experiencing homelessness.

As the region's leading provider of services to adults who have experienced chronic homelessness, DESC serves almost 3,000 people each day. Our integrated service model is designed to help people secure and maintain appropriate, safe and affordable housing. DESC is recognized nationally and regionally as an innovator in developing solutions to homelessness.

Come work for us!

About the Opioid Recovery & Care Access (ORCA) program

DESC’s ORCA program provides compassionate, low-barrier, and evidence-based care to individuals who are recovering from opioid overdose and those seeking treatment for opioid use disorder (OUD). The ORCA Center, our brick-and-mortar location, provides post-overdose subacute stabilization services and provides walk-in access to medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD). The ORCA Patient Outreach Division (POD) delivers field-based MOUD care – meeting people where they literally are in the community.

ORCA Center

The ORCA Center is open 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, including holidays. It is staffed by a multidisciplinary team, including providers, nurses, medical assistants, peers, and milieu specialists. The ORCA Center offers four overlapping types of services:

• Care to individuals in stable condition who have experienced an opioid overdose, brought to the ORCA Center by first responders or transferred from local emergency departments.
• Rapid initiation of medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD), including buprenorphine (sublingual and long-acting injectable) and methadone (under the “72-hour rule”, or CFR Title 21 §1306.07 (b)), for people with OUD, regardless of whether an opioid overdose has recently occurred.
• Harm reduction counseling and OUD-related physical and behavioral health services.
• Follow-up care for individuals who have started MOUD to ensure support in MOUD continuation.

ORCA POD

ORCA POD is ORCA’s field-based care team, bringing MOUD induction, stabilization, and maintenance services as well as education and other supports directly to patients in the community. ORCA POD operates during business hours (Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.). ORCA POD is a multidisciplinary team, including providers, nurses, and peers, operating across several geographic areas throughout the greater Seattle region including:

• Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH) sites
• Emergency shelters
• Encampments or unsanctioned sites
• High-need geographic zones identified in collaboration with DESC and community partners
• Areas without easy access to low-barrier MOUD services

JOB DEFINITION

The ORCA Peer Specialist provides services to clients receiving care from the ORCA Center and ORCA POD. Peer Specialists bring lived experience with recovery from substance use and/or addiction and apply formal training to support clients through mind-body recovery and resilience. The ORCA Peer Specialist shares personal, practical experience, knowledge, and insight with participants and team members. They are well established in their recovery and offer unique perspectives that complement clinical practice. This position involves a high degree of collaboration with other DESC programs, community partners, and healthcare providers. The role reports to the ORCA Peer Supervisor.

MAJOR DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Direct Service Job Duties:

• Provide peer counseling services at the ORCA Center and via outreach across the Seattle area
• Identify individuals in need, screen for appropriateness to services, develop rapport and trust while offering support, and assist with immediate and basic needs to individuals who are houseless/at risk of becoming houseless and in need of medication for opioid use disorder, with or without stimulant use disorder.
• Link the individuals to medication for opioid use disorder through our own program, or if exiting our program, link them to services elsewhere as part of their discharge plan.
• Aid in obtaining and coordinating social and maintenance services for eligible individuals experiencing houselessness, including services relating to daily living activities, personal financial planning, transportation, habilitation and rehabilitation services, prevocational and vocational services, and housing services (including referrals to coordinated entry and/or other housing resources).
• Integrate personal experience with mental illness and substance use disorders into work with program participants.
• Help participants identify, understand, and combat stigma and discrimination associated with mental illness and substance use disorders and develop strategies to reduce self-stigma.
• Advocate for clients' access to community resources and services, ensuring that clients' needs are met, and rights maintained; consult and collaborate with community providers to ensure continuity of care, facilitate linkages to collaborative resources when appropriate.
• Assist consumers with voicing their interests and goals through a variety of channels including: Goal Plans, Crisis Plans, WRAP and other methods of expressing individual preferences for their recovery goals.
• Participate in verbal de-escalation and in emergent situations and be willing and able to assist other staff as needed to maintain a safe and secure environment.
• Other duties as assigned.

Requirements

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS

• Current Certified Peer Support Specialist (CPSS) or Certified Peer Support Specialist Trainee (CPSS-T) credential through the Washington State Department of Health or ability to gain certification within 60 days of hire. 
• Lived experience as a consumer of behavioral health services (mental health and/or substance use treatment) or be the parent or legal guardian of a child who has received behavioral health services.
• Desire to serve people with complex needs who are or have been experiencing homelessness and are living with serious and persistent mental illness, substance use disorder, and other complex medical conditions.
• Able to work effectively with clients displaying a wide range of challenging behaviors .
• Adaptable to changing priorities, processes, or workflows as the program grows and evolves.
• Able to give and receive constructive feedback.
• Familiar with trauma-informed care, harm reduction, and equity and social justice principles.
• Possess cultural humility and able to work effectively with individuals of diverse backgrounds and identities.
• Be willing to seek to understand each client's unique circumstances and personal preferences and goals and incorporate them into the crisis response to help the client regain a sense of control.
• Strong knowledge of relevant community resources and methods for accessing them.
• Have a strong understanding of recovery and resilience, the value of client partnerships and client choice, and the balance between protection from harm and personal dignity.
• Willing to travel across the greater Seattle area to provide patient services.

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

• One or more years' experience in community based behavioral health services or like industry serving a diverse client/participant population. 
• Two or more years’ experience leveraging personal peer story as a peer specialist.
• Lived experience as a consumer of opioid use disorder treatment.
• Ability to drive an agency or personal vehicle to conduct agency related business, including a current Washington State driver's license and insurable driving record.
• Knowledge of de-escalation skills, crisis intervention & stabilization, and harm reduction strategies.
• Bi-cultural background/experience.
• Bi-lingual in Spanish/English or other languages.

Strong applicants are able to demonstrate the ability to be positive in their empathetic responses to all persons; understand the value of meaningful and deep client engagement; have the potential to acquire the necessary knowledge, attitudes and skills of an effective crisis worker; and value a non-judgmental response to sensitive issues. Candidates should be able to accept feedback and work in a highly collaborative and potentially stressful environment.

PHYSICAL DEMANDS

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. While performing the duties of this job, the employee will be required sit for long periods of time, communicate with other persons by talking and hearing, required to lift and carry items weighing up to 40 pounds and to operate computer hardware systems. Specific vision abilities required by the job include close vision, distance vision, color vision, peripheral vision, depth perception, and the ability to adjust focus.

EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER:

DESC is committed to diversity in the workplace and promotes equal employment opportunities for all staff members and applicants. The Agency will not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment on the basis of race, creed, color, sex, gender, sexual orientation, age, national origin, caste, marital status, or the presence of any sensory, mental or physical disability in any employment practice, unless based on a bona fide occupational qualification. Minorities and veterans are encouraged to apply.