04 November 2011 9:44 PM | Kay Glass (Administrator)

At the 30th Anniversary meeting of IC&RC, the Board of Directors, representing 78 certification boards from 25 countries and 45,000 reciprocal-level credentialed professionals, approved two levels of Peer Recovery Support credential for alcohol and other drugs, mental health, and co-occurring disorders. Based on federal guidelines, as well as several jurisdictions already offering a peer credential, the domains were set as:

• Advocacy
• Mentoring/Education
• Recovery Support
• Ethical Responsibility

Both levels will require:

Education
High school diploma or jurisdictionally certified high school equivalency.
-46 hours specific to the domains.
-10 hours in each of the first three domains
-16 hours must be specific to ethics

Examination: Applicants must pass the IC&RC International Written PRS Examination.

Code of Ethics: Applicants must sign a code of ethics or affirmation statement.

Recertification: 20 hours of continuing education earned every two years including six hours of ethics training.

Level II will additionally require:

Experience: 100 hours of supervised volunteer or paid practical experience specific to the PRS domains

Supervision: The 100 hours of experience specific to the domains must be supervised by an appropriately certified or licensed individual in the behavioral health field.

IC&RC provides the minimum standards for each reciprocal credential, but Member Boards may set higher standards for their credentials. The organization will now proceed with developing a full Job Task Analysis and a fully referenced examination.