The Role of the CRPA (Certified Recovery Peer Advocate) for Addiction Recovery

Victory Recovery Partners, a network of five addiction-recovery centers on Long Island, New York, recognizes the importance of counseling in helping our patients recover. Our counseling staff consists of behavioral health counselors such as those with the titles of MSW, LMSW, LCSW, and LMHC. In addition to these social workers and mental health counselors, we also utilize the skills and experiences of our Certified Recovery Peer Advocates (CRPA) to help our patients along their recovery journeys. The CRPAs play a vital role, as they are able to relate to the patient, often through their own past struggles with substance use and addiction.  

The CRPA aims to create a non-clinical relationship with the patient, providing support and an ability to personally relate to the patient’s struggles. According to the National Council for Behavorial Health, patients who engage with CRPAs typically benefit in a number of ways including reduced remission rates, an ability to achieve recovery milestones and goals, and a shortened recovery period.  

As explained above, our CRPAs frequently have had their own struggles with addiction and substance use – however, they were able to overcome these obstacles. As a result, CRPAs are eager to use their personal experiences and past struggles to help patients who are currently going through a similar situation. 

 There are four main categories of care that CRPAs provide. This includes advocacy, mentoring and education, recovery/wellness support, and ethical responsibility. Starting with advocacy, a CRPA is able to relate to the patient and advocate for multiple pathways to recovery and wellness. Additionally, the CRPA will practice effective communication skills, allowing the patient-CRPA relationship to grow and expand.  

The CRPA also provides mentoring and education to our patients. By doing so, they serve as a role model for the patient, while teaching the patients about self-care and the importance of developing a healthy daily routine. The CRPA also will help the patient to learn how to develop healthy, positive, and strong relationships with others. This includes enhancing relationships between friends, family members, and co-workers.  

A very crucial part of the role of the CRPA is to provide recovery and wellness support. This includes a number of methods including assisting the individual with setting goals, recognizing signs of distress or the early signs of a possible relapse, and demonstrating to the patient that they understand the impact that past trauma has had on their lives. With recovery and wellness support, the CRPA will also help the patient develop and recognize other support systems that they can utilize to help them with their recovery; this could include friends and family members.  

The CRPA also provides ethical responsibility, which includes showing non-judgmental behavior, and the recognition of risk indicators that may affect the patient’s safety. This is important because the patient should always feel like they can be open and honest with their CRPA counselor. For a patient-CRPA relationship to grow and evolve effectively, the patient must feel that the CRPA has their best interests in mind.  

The role of the Certified Recovery Peer Advocate (CRPA) is to help provide an extra layer of support for our patients. These patients will still be meeting regularly with our behavioral health counselors, such as our social workers and licensed mental health counselors. However, the CRPA provides another perspective that has shown to be truly beneficial in helping patients recover. The CRPAs have usually suffered with addiction and substance use issues in the past, and can now provide guidance and support to our patients in a role model fashion. At Victory, we recognize that having several treatment options for our patients is often beneficial, and that involves including the experience, knowledge and expertise of our CRPAs to help with a patient’s recovery. For more information on Victory Recovery Partners, visit www.victoryrp.com