Become a Certified Peer

In theory, anyone over 18 can be trained and take the certification exam who has lived experience with mental illness or a mood disorder.

You do not have to become certified to perform peer support work in California. Previous to this year, many individuals have been performing peer support work, and many are gainfully employed by counties, hospitals, behavioral health agencies and other employers. And of course hundreds of individuals do peer support on a volunteer basis. This will not change, legally.

That said, it is expected that in the future, most employers of peer support specialists will require certification as a condition of employment, at least for new hires. So if you are thinking of a career in peer support, we strongly encourage you to go through the process of certification.

As of May 1, 2022 there is no approved test for certification, so this has not been finalized. However there is a list of “core competencies” on the SAMHSA web site. California’s knowledge and requirements pretty closely mirror this list, though there will be some fairly minor differences. Click here for their |PDF| list.

First, decide if you want to do this. There is some expense, though there is some scholarship money available.

Beginning Monday (May 2, 2022), you may request to be put on the list for your county to receive a scholarship (it is expected this will cover virtually all the costs of training and certification). Contact your county’s Mental Health or Behavioral Health Department or, if you are already working in the field of mental health, you can see if your employer is helping with this piece. Indicate you would like to become a Certified Peer Support Specialist in California and would like to apply for the scholarship

Your training for this certification cannot begin before July 1, unless you have been trained and have been working professionally in the field, in which case there is a “grand-parenting” process. The DHCS and CalMHSA web sites (below) have more information on this process.

For this round, your training and testing must be completed this year.

Probably not. There is a list of approved training organizations online. DBSA has been approved as a training vendor, so you can go through us. Your county may possibly have a preferred trainer; you can indicate you would like to go through the DBSA training. We will post all the details shortly on our training programs.

The required training is a minimum of 80 hours. That might be completed over a period of 4 weeks, or perhaps more or less.

DBSA’s training is a combination of online, self-study and other modalities. At this time there is no require face-to-face training.

Check the links below. If you still have questions, email us at [email protected]

Scholarship Information and FAQs

Medi-Cal Peer Support Specialist Certification – Grandparenting Checklist

Technical Items on the CalMHSA Web Site

Technical Items on the DHCS Web Site

Grandparenting Process