Va. lawmaker’s federal PEER Support Act aims to bolster recovery specialists

The U.S. Capitol is shown on March 14, 2024. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)

As someone with the lived experience of battling addiction — to include the criminal record that often goes hand in hand with the disease — Rachel Alderman is among the best-suited people to help others cope. 

Alderman is a peer recovery specialist and community health worker at the Community Health Center of the New River Valley, where she helps people overcome drug addiction. Lately, she’s felt a fresh sense of pride in her role, since new federal and state efforts to support these types of mental health workers have made headway.

But it’s often been challenging for professionals like her to land their dream job because it’s common for people coping with substance use disorders to have also entered the criminal justice system. 

Then their past convictions, time-served, probation status or fines still owed can prevent them from obtaining many types of jobs. In Alderman’s case, her possession charges could have prevented her from working in the field, if not for law changes and permissive employers. 

While private or nonprofit organizations have been able to more freely hire people with certain criminal records, state or federal-funded facilities often can’t. 

Virginia state lawmakers have chipped away at some of these barriers over the years and U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, now hopes to support those efforts nationwide. 

Peer recovery specialists like Alderman interface directly with patients and collaborate with clinical social workers or medical officers to help patients address their physical and mental health while they try to overcome their addiction. 

Alderman always had an interest in working in the mental health field, but her struggles with substance use disorder held her back. When she was seeking care from clinicians, she said it was a visit with a peer recovery specialist who helped her both recover and realize her professional pathway was still possible. 

“I knew my clinicians cared about me. I knew that they wanted to see me get better, but they didn’t really get (how addiction feels). And then this guy comes in, and somehow he’s figured it out,” Alderman explained. “So I’m like ‘Well he did it, so maybe I’ll listen to his suggestions that I might have been hard-headed against at first.’”

This week, Kaine and Indiana Republican Sen. Jim Banks introduced the Providing Empathetic and Effective Recovery (PEER) Support Act. If it becomes law, it would direct the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as well as the U.S. Department of Justice to study states’ screening processes for peer support specialists and examine which factors are barriers for certification or hiring.

This matters, Kaine said, because not every state has taken the steps to reform that workforce the way that Virginia has. The bill would also direct the U.S. Office of Management and Budget to revise the Standard Operational Classification system to recognize peer support specialists as a profession to help ensure data reporting on the field. 

His bill is “driven by conversations” he’s had with his constituents around the state, Kaine said. 

“It is only acts like this bill that hopefully will allow for these changes to be made,” said Michelle Brauns, Community Health Center of New River Valley’s CEO. 

Kaine also suggested that he believes his bill can inspire more public esteem for the work peer support specialists do.

“Let’s raise the respect for this profession,” Kaine said. 

Alderman said it could also boost respect for people recovering from addictions.

“We’re often seen as less-than or not a whole person,” Alderman said. “This kind of recognition on this kind of level really feels good.” 

While his efforts at the federal level can’t overwrite the way states regulate their professionals, Kaine said that the PEER Act can help guide the way for states to rethink how they regulate peer recovery specialists. 

It’s something Virginia has already been tackling. Del. Cia Price, D-Newport News, and Sen. Todd Pillion, R-Washington, passed legislation to prevent certain criminal convictions from barring people from peer recovery work. Gov. Glenn Youngkin signed their bills last year. 

Other barriers have also been addressed in the statehouse, such as a bill this year by Del. Katrina Callsen, D-Charlottesville, which t eliminates the need to have paid off any owed fines or fees to be considered for peer recovery jobs. Youngkin signed this bill, too.

“If you can’t get a job that you’re best-poised to do, how do we expect people to ever be able to pay?” Price said. 

Price also emphasized the racial disparities at play in the criminal justice system. She noted that people of color are more likely to have interactions with law enforcement, so people of color with substance use disorders are also more likely to serve time as a result of their disease. But the bipartisan work she and others have achieved in this space is something she wants to see continue. 

While Kaine has introduced his bill previously, he’s said he is hopeful this time it will gain more traction and pass, particularly since it has bipartisan support from numerous cosponsors.