Supporting Peer Support: The Lifeblood of Health and Human Services
My decision to pursue professional certification as a Peer Support Specialist was deeply personal. I chose this path to honor my niece, who tragically died by suicide following an overdose while living with substance-use challenges and chronic depression. At the time, she was engaged in treatment and recovery and working toward becoming a professionally licensed Peer Support Specialist herself.
One of the most difficult experiences of my life was standing before our family, friends, and her grieving parents and siblings to read her suicide letter. In that painful moment, I had to find the strength to offer support and encouragement to those mourning her loss while grieving her death myself.
From that day forward, I committed myself to carrying forward the dream she had begun. I vowed to support people facing mental-health and substance-use challenges, strengthen recovery, expand access to compassionate services, and help prevent similar tragedies from devastating families and communities.
Peer support begins with meeting people where they are and offering compassion, presence, and practical assistance when they need it most. Sometimes that means providing a hot meal, helping with paperwork, offering a ride to the grocery store, accompanying someone to a job interview or medical appointment, or donating clothing so they can feel confident and prepared. Other times, it means offering encouragement, an attentive ear, or a shoulder to lean on—or cry on.
People often need to be seen and heard, regardless of where they are in life or what challenges they may be facing.
Peer Support Specialists are the lifeblood of reentry, recovery, treatment, community safety, health equity, and harm reduction. Their lived experience, compassion, and practical knowledge help individuals navigate complex systems, access essential services, and pursue healthier, more stable lives.
They bring trust, empathy, and the ability to connect with people with reduced judgment. They help individuals recognize their strengths, build confidence, connect with resources, and take meaningful steps toward recovery, stability, and self-determination.
We must move beyond treating a 50-hour baseline credential as the sole preparation for complex, high-responsibility work. Foundational certification should be an introduction to the profession—not the end of a Peer Support Specialist’s education and development.
Peer support should not be treated as an afterthought or a low-cost solution to complex social and behavioral-health challenges. Peer Support Specialists perform demanding work that requires emotional intelligence, professional judgment, specialized training, and ongoing commitment. They deserve fair compensation and a livable wage that reflects their value and allows them to support themselves and their families with dignity.
When Peer Support Specialists receive quality training, fair pay, professional respect, manageable workloads, supportive supervision, and opportunities for advancement, individuals, families, organizations, and communities benefit.
When organizations support their Peer Support Specialists, they unlock one of the most powerful tools for building rapport: trust. That trust strengthens communication, improves services, and helps create treatment models that respond to people’s real experiences.
Supporting peer support means investing in people, relationships, recovery, and community well-being. By investing in the training, compensation, wellness, professional development, and leadership of Peer Support Specialists, we strengthen the entire health and human-services system—and help ensure that fewer families experience the kind of loss that changed my life forever.
About Jamir Jumoke:
Jamir Jumoke is a writer, speaker, recidivism reduction and recovery coach, and community outreach specialist with the North Carolina Harm Reduction Coalition. With a passion for helping individuals rebuild, recover, and thrive, Jamir brings both lived experience and professional insight to community leadership, self-development, and social change.
WHQR commentaries don’t necessarily reflect the views of WHQR Public Media, its editorial staff, or its members.