Strengthening the Peer Recovery Workforce: Recommendations in Response to the Office of National Drug Control Policy’s Priorities

Abstract

The expansion of peer recovery support services has not only rapidly integrated peers across service systems but also threatens to drift peer roles toward clinical duties and erode values that gave rise to the peer support movement. The earliest peer professional roles emerged from social advocacy efforts that rejected clinical, hierarchical, and coercive models of care, instead advancing nonclinical, mutual, and person-centered recovery support. As the U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy calls to strengthen the peer workforce, it offers an opportunity to revisit the social movements that built peer support, clarify why these founding values were considered essential, and use these principles to guide contemporary policy and funding decisions. In this commentary, we provide historical context for the intention of professional peer support roles and articulate how federal and state policy can resist the force of role drift by grounding future workforce development in the movement’s original values.