PRSS Micro-Credential Program Launches

Southern WV Community & Technical College has launched a new program to help train Peer Recovery Support Specialists. This was the class of August 2024. Five of these individuals went on to become PRSS.

Southern has just launched its new micro-credential workforce development program.

The 46-hour training includes 16 hours of peer ethics training which is enough for people to become certified PRSS (Peer Recovery Support Specialists) in West Virginia.

What makes this training unique is the partnership with the workforce development program. The nature of the institutional affiliation makes the peers more marketable based on the level of professionalism associated with completing a course supported by an academic institution.

Peer recovery support services, delivered by peer recovery coaches, are one form of peer support. They involve the process of giving and receiving on-clinical assistance to support long-term recovery from substance use disorders.

A peer recovery coach brings the lived experience of recovery, combined with training and supervision, to assist others in initiating and maintaining recovery, helping to enhance the quality of person and family life in long-term recovery.

Peer-based recovery supports are an emerging transformation of systems and services addressing substance abuse disorders.

“This program will effectively create a skill set for people who have had lived experience with substance use disorders or other behavior health issues to gain employment and use their experience to help someone else overcome the challenges they may face in their recovery process,” Aaron Blankenship, Peer Recovery Support Specialist said.

“The effects of the drug epidemic here have been felt throughout the land in ways that we are all grimly familiar with. Overdose fatalities that are directly related to the use of opioid drugs,” Blankenship said. The incarceration numbers that are directly related to the use of illicit substances. The sales of said substances, along with the indirect actions that people will take, due to the substances they have used, or due to the withdrawal that drives them to do things they usually would not have, in order to get the substances. Families that have been decimated by the loss of loved ones. The epidemic has ravaged communities, as the crime rates are through the roof and the jail bills have skyrocketed. The implications of the PRSS training being a formidable response to these findings are astounding. This training and the presence of the PRSS that will be trained will affect the lives of everyone in our communities, giving hope to all those who find themselves so far down that they may not feel like there is a tomorrow or that change is possible.”

Blankenship says the program is essential to me because I am a person who has lived in these areas for many years and witnessed firsthand the devastation that untreated substance use disorders and underlying behavioral health issues can cause. “I have witnessed my experiences with the criminal justice system and the civil unrest in my family cause extreme amounts of disorder and chaos in my life.”

“Traumatic experiences had become a common occurrence by the time I was a teenager, and I didn’t have the resources or the willingness to utilize those resources at that point in my life.”

“Fast forward years of untreated SUD and other behavioral health issues, I had lost connections with many of my family and found myself involved in the criminal justice system. It took me many years to reach the point where I wanted to improve my life, and people with PRSS experience played a part in that journey.”

“Joey McComas, a mentor and a certified PRSS from the Recovery Group of Southern West Virginia, led me to believe there was a better way to live. The path I began in that place led to where I am today.” Blankenship said. “Becoming someone who not only can extend that hand of guidance out to those who need it but also to teach others how to do the same things has become heartwarming and fulfilling. I want to help as many people as possible understand that they are not alone in this fight and that they have people in their corner to help them through this, and the ripple effects of the training I can realize this on a much larger scale.”

Today, I find myself closer to God than I have ever been. Miracles and blessings continue to pour into my life, and where there once was chaos, there now is peace and a capacity to deal with many of life’s most difficult issues much more healthily than I used to.