Siantz Elizabeth, Pelot Morgan, Ostrow Laysha
University of Utah, College of Social Work, Salt Lake City, UT, USA.
Portland State University, Department of Psychology, Portland, OR, USA.
Subst Use Addctn J. 2025 Jul;46(3):624-632. doi: 10.1177/29767342251322243. Epub 2025 Mar 12.
Recent work has highlighted the challenges and benefits that certified peer specialists (CPSs) experience in the workforce. While their work can lead to personal fulfillment and financial independence for CPSs, and improved mental health and substance use recovery outcomes for their clients, little is known about CPS employment trajectories or the circumstances that impact their early-career workforce involvement over time.
This study used within- and across-case analyses of longitudinal data from qualitative interviews with 13 CPS that participated in a multistate, 3 year observational prospective cohort study of CPS graduates to explore employment changes and circumstances that led to these transitions. Qualitative results were organized according to whether cases were "employed as a CPS at follow-up" (N = 5) or "not employed as CPS at follow-up" (N = 8).
Participants "employed as a CPS" at follow-up held various positions following certification, and they shared a sense of optimism about their future work. At the second interview, most remained in the same positions they held at baseline and described personal fulfillment and a supportive work environment as reasons for remaining. Participants who were "not employed as a CPS" at follow-up were also not employed as a CPS at their baseline interview but aspired to pursue future CPS work. At their second interview, many remained unemployed due to poor health and disability, or described past traumatic experiences, stress, and burnout related to being a CPS as reasons for leaving the CPS work force. All participants were challenged to find work as a CPS at various moments in their trajectories.
Results indicate that securing employment as a CPS was challenging for participants. Findings are discussed with implications for supporting CPS job seeking, well-being, and workforce retention.
近期的研究突出了认证同伴专家（CPS）在工作中所面临的挑战和带来的益处。虽然他们的工作能够让CPS实现个人价值并实现经济独立，同时也能改善客户的心理健康状况以及药物使用康复效果，但对于CPS的就业轨迹，以及随着时间推移影响他们早期职业劳动力参与情况的因素，我们却知之甚少。
本研究对13名CPS进行了定性访谈，并采用纵向数据的案例内和跨案例分析方法。这些CPS参与了一项多州、为期3年的CPS毕业生观察性前瞻性队列研究，以探究就业变化以及导致这些转变的情况。定性结果根据案例在随访时是否“受雇为CPS”（N = 5）或“随访时未受雇为CPS”（N = 8）进行整理。
随访时“受雇为CPS”的参与者在获得认证后担任了各种职位，他们对未来的工作都抱有乐观态度。在第二次访谈时，大多数人仍担任与基线时相同的职位，并将个人成就感和支持性的工作环境作为留任的原因。随访时“未受雇为CPS”的参与者在基线访谈时也未受雇为CPS，但他们渴望未来从事CPS工作。在第二次访谈时，许多人由于健康状况不佳和残疾而仍处于失业状态，或者将过去与担任CPS相关的创伤经历、压力和职业倦怠描述为离开CPS劳动力队伍的原因。所有参与者在其职业轨迹的不同阶段都面临着寻找CPS工作的挑战。
结果表明，对参与者来说，获得CPS工作具有挑战性。我们将对研究结果进行讨论，并探讨其对支持CPS求职、福祉和劳动力留存的意义。
