Videos: Toolkit for Consumer Worker Success

In this video series, consumer workers and supervisors from participating agencies, along with staff from CAI, Amida Care, and Stony Brook University’s Peer Certification Academic Center, share their lessons learned, key tips, and challenges. Each video is accompanied by resources to support agencies, supervisors, and peers in their progress.

Author

From 2017-2022, Amida Care and CAI partnered with seven clinical and community-based organizations in NYC to provide to support peers, or consumer workers, in becoming certified through the New York State Department of Health AIDS Institute (AI) to offer HIV, hepatitis C (HCV), harm reduction, or PrEP services, and eventually, to join the health and human services workforce.

This project included active support for consumer workers who were pursuing AI peer certification, and to their supervisors and their agencies. It also offered coaching, mentoring, and professional development to guide and mentor peers as they transition to employment whether at their sponsoring agency or elsewhere. The project had a particular focus on ensuring that agencies had sufficient supports and structures in place to support, develop, and integrate consumer workers into their multidisciplinary teams.

Year published

2023

Watch the videos

This video and accompanying resources are intended for agency leadership and peer supervisors who are considering starting a peer program, or who wish to strengthen their existing program.

Resources:

• Tip sheet: Preparing to Integrate Consumer Workers into Your Agency (580 KB PDF)
• Tool: Organizational Readiness Assessment (435 KB PDF)

For peer supervisors and agency leadership, this video and accompanying resources offer key considerations for successfully supervising consumer workers during and after certification.

Resources:

• Tip sheet: Best Practices for Supervising Consumer Workers (580 KB PDF)
• Worksheet: Supervisory Support Template (170 KB PDF)
• Tool: Supporting the Professional Persona Through Supervision (350 KB PDF)
• Supervisor Evaluation Form – downloadable version (340 KB PDF)
• Key Resources for Peer Supervisors (210 KB PDF)

Hear from certified peers, seasoned supervisors, mentors, and those who created the certification process about what the experience is like in this video.

Resources

• Worksheet: Certification Timeline for Peers and Supervisors (200 KB PDF)
• Worksheet: Using the Supervisory Evaluation as a Professional Development Tool (230 KB PDF)
• Supervisor Evaluation Form – downloadable version (340 KB PDF)

For supervisors and consumer workers: Hear from peers, supervisors, and others about strategies to ensure peers are fully integrated into the team in this video.

Resources

• Tip sheet: Best Practices for Integrating Peer Workers into Multidisciplinary Teams (580 KB PDF)
• Worksheet: Communications Planning Tool for Peer Integration (170 KB PDF)