At a state-wide Positive Practices Meeting almost two years ago, some of us from Philadelphia Coordinated Health Care (PCHC) heard about Peer Support and Certified Peer Specialists (CPSs). Following that meeting, we set out to learn what we could about CPS and in the process opened up a whole new way of thinking about bridging the gap between services provided under the auspices of the Offices of Developmental Programs (ODP) and Mental Health Substance Abuse Services (OMHSAS). It seemed that if CPS could help people with mental illness walk through their journey of recovery, couldn’t peer specialists help some people with intellectual disabilities who also cope with mental illness? Further could a person with dual diagnosis (mental illness and intellectual disabilities) take the training and become a CPS? Finally, could we develop advanced training for CPS to help them work with people who have dual diagnosis? Two years later we think the answer to all those questions is, yes!

During this time, we have connected with the Mental Health Association of Southeastern Pennsylvania, the organization that provides the training for peer specialists, and three of the counties in Southeastern Pennsylvania, Delaware, Montgomery and Philadelphia Counties. We located a number of people with intellectual disabilities who were using CPS and conducted focus groups with the individuals and their CPSs in Philadelphia. The focus groups served several purposes: to see how people with dual diagnosis felt about CPSs, to understand how the CPSs felt about working with people who had dual diagnosis, and to get a better understanding of what kind of training CPSs might want or need. We also met with the CPS advisory board in Delaware County and with Montgomery County administrative staff as well as their intellectual disability providers. Through this process we have discovered how people access CPS support (differs from county to county), how CPSs are trained and certified, and that statewide, four people with intellectual disabilities have already participated in the training and been certified. We are about to begin work on advanced training for existing CPSs to work with people who have dual diagnosis.

An area yet to be explored is the possibility of employment of CPSs by Intellectual Disability Providers. We know that CPS is an MA compensable service and we know that CPSs are 60% employed. We also know that some Intellectual Agencies serve a high proportion of people with dual diagnosis. We are interested in knowing is any agency would be interested in employing a CPS? If so, how would that service work? How would a CPS interact with a person’s team? We are looking for collaborative partners in this quest to bring CPSs support to people with intellectual disabilities. We are continuing to meet with individuals who have dual diagnosis and the CPSs who are work with them.