Measuring Outcomes of Peer Recovery Support Services

The Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services (DBHDS) is committed to supporting implementation of effective recovery services for individuals experiencing mental health or substance use disorders. To fulfill this commitment, DBHDS sought to expand and enhance recovery services delivered by substance use and mental health peer recovery specialists, as well as generate and implement more standardized, outcome-focused metrics for individuals receiving services from peers.

Peers are individuals providing recovery services who have lived experience with substance use and/or mental health disorders and are in recovery. To guide this expansion and ensure effective peer recovery support services, a targeted review of the peer recovery services literature was conducted to provide:

• An overview of recovery and peer support within the field of behavioral health services;

• A current definition of peers and a description of the recovery support services they provide;

• A focused repository of salient substance use and mental health recovery outcomes associated with peer recovery support services;

• Suggestions for selecting measures/assessments of peer recovery support services-related outcomes; and

•Recommendations to guide peer recovery service provision, evaluation, and outcomes measurement.

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