New York Advocate Certifications

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Become a Peer Advocate
in New York State

Types of New York Peer Advocates

(NYCPS) NY Certified Peer Specialist

Peer Specialists help others in recovery by assisting them the tasks of managing daily skills for healthy living,

helping them stay motivated through social and emotional support, linking them to clinical care and community resources, and by offering long-term proactive support.
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(FPA) Family Peer Advocate Credentialed

Family Peer Advocates have ‘lived-experience’ as the parent (biological, foster, adoptive)

or primary caregiver of a child/youth with a social, emotional, behavioral, mental health, or developmental disability). They receive training to develop skills and strategies to empower and support other families. They foster effective parent-professional partnership and promote the practice of family-driven and youth-guided approaches.
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(YPA) Youth Peer Advocate Credentialed

Youth Peer Advocates are individuals between 18-30 years of age who self-identify as a person

with first-hand experience with a social, emotional, medical, developmental, substance use, and/or behavioral challenges as a young person or have received services in any one of the child-serving systems (juvenile justice, foster care, special education, or addiction recovery).
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(CRPA) Certified Recovery Peer Advocate

Peer support services are an important part of the treatment and recovery process. 

Certified Recovery Peer Advocates (CRPAs) draw from personal experience with substance use, and professional training to provide non-clinical support services as identified in the patient’s treatment or recovery plan. CPRAs may also help those in treatment/recovery in the development of recovery plans, effective coping habits, and life skills for navigating recovery.
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(CRPA-F) Certified Recovery Peer Advocate- Family

The Certified Recovery Peer Advocate-Family is a trained CRPA providing formal

and informal activities and supports provided to the parent or primary caregiver of families caring for/raising a child who is experiencing social, emotional, medical, developmental, substance use, and/or behavioral challenges in the home, school, placement and/or community.
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(CARC) Certified Addiction Recovery Coach

A Recovery Coach is anyone committed to promoting recovery from addiction by assisting recoverees

to remove barriers to recovery, generating individualized recovery options, and
connecting recoverees with recovery support services designed to build recovery capital.
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Other Opportunities

(NCPS)
National Certified Peer Specialist

What Does a Peer Specialist Do?

The National Certified Peer Specialist
(NCPS) Certification

is a voluntary, examination-based certification that allows peers to demonstrate a high level of experience and competencies in peer support. The NCPS does not replace state certifications but is an add-on to required state certifications. Individuals who earn the NCPS go above and beyond state certification to show their leadership and commitment to the growth and advancement of the field.

About (BH HCBS) Behavioral Health Home and Community Based Services

BH HCBS will be available to adults meeting Serious Mental Illness (SMI) and Substance Use Disorder (SUD) targeting criteria and risk factors in HARPs and HIV SNPs who are found eligible through an assessment.

Volunteer peer Support

There are places in your community where you can volunteer to make someone else’s life better: the Big Brother/ Big Sister Program, pantries, soup kitchens and more.