Certified Medi-Cal Peer Support Specialist Training
80 hours/Live Webinar & Self-Paced
Experienced trainers lead the 80-hour CMPSS Training that covers the 17 core competencies required to successfully prepare for the California Peer Support Specialist exam to achieve certification and implement effective strategies for service delivery.
Peers have a transformative effect on client care and use their valuable lived experiences to help others navigate and progress in their own recovery process. Pacific Clinics has led professional development courses aligning with peer empowerment, respect, and resiliency principles for over 25 years.
Courses are interactive and held via Zoom offered through a combination of live webinars with lectures, skills exercises, small group and open guided discussion, and self-paced training modules. We offer a curriculum that fosters inclusion, resource sharing, and belonging. You will achieve confidence and competence to become a CMPSS, and once certified qualify to enroll in the specialty training programs.
Apply Here
Training Method: Online, Live Webinar, Hybrid and Custom (Custom trainings are available for organizations with a minimum of 15 participants – custom session dates can be in-person at your site, online, or hybrid based on availability – travel and lodging costs charged separately for onsite training)
Training Modality: Cohort Style with Self-Paced Individual Learning
Training Location (for hybrid attendance only): Pacific Clinics Recovery Education Institute (must be an Orange County resident)
401 South Tustin Street, Bldg. B, Orange, CA 92866
Training Length: 80 hours (54 hours live webinar & 26 hours self-paced)
Registration Capacity: 50 students maximum per cohort
Training Dates: December 18, 2023 – February 2, 2024
Training Hours: The course will consist of nine (9) self-paced sessions on some Mondays & Wednesdays and 18 live webinars primarily on Tuesdays/Wednesday/Thursdays from 1:00pm-4:00pm.
If you have any questions, please contact us at peercert@pacificclinics.org.
Mary Cline, Training Administrator
626-701-4622
(Mon-Fri 8:00am – 4:00pm)
Peer Services in Crisis Care Specialization Training
40 hours/Live Webinar & Self-Paced
Training and competency in specialty care is vital to delivering effective whole-person care services. Pacific Clinics has highly skilled trainers, including peer partners and other staff with lived experience, that facilitate the Peer Services in Crisis Care specialty training sessions.
Training dates: TBD in January 2024
Training Modality: Cohort Style with Self-Paced Individual Learning
Training Length: 40 hours (30 hrs. live webinar/10 hrs. self-paced)
Pacific Clinics recognizes that Peers play a critical role in crisis situations. Peers can link people in crisis to necessary services and support continuing care. They are a critical component of the interdisciplinary teams providing the engagement necessary for individuals to feel supported and understood during their time of greatest need.
Peer Services in Crisis Care can complement clinical services and help individuals in crisis. The inclusion of peer support workers in crisis care helps facilitate a trauma-informed response and recovery-oriented and strengths-based approaches. Peer support workers demonstrate that recovery is possible and act as an advocate for the individual. This may help improve outcomes, such as reduced trauma and agitation, increased trust, reduced hospitalizations, and emergency department usage for mental and/or substance use disorders, reduced recurrence of symptoms, and decreased recidivism.
The following are the three categories and their core competencies for peer services for in crisis care. Please note that situations can be fluid and escalate or de-escalate quickly from tension to crisis and back. The Peer support skills needed for this specialization carry across the artificial boundaries of these categories.
Prevention –
1. Pathways to Crisis
2. Prevention, De-Escalation, and Crisis Resolution
3. Engagement and Resource Connection / Navigation
4. Person-Centered Trauma-Informed
5. Co-occurring disorders of mental health and substance use
During Crisis –
6. Conflict Resolution
7. Person-Centered Trauma-Informed
8. Co-occurring disorders of mental health and substance use
9. Crisis and special populations
Post-Crisis / Recovery / Ongoing Peer Support –
10. Crisis planning and support
11. Self-awareness and self-care
Peer Services for Unhoused Specialization Training
40 hours/Live Webinar & Self-Paced
Housing instability is a complex problem that comprises a variety of issues. With the Peer Services for Unhoused training, Peer will learn to engage in a collaborative approach towards providing resources and outreach and diversion services to unhoused individuals in a way that is safe, supported, and dignified.
Training Dates: TBD in January 2024
Training Modality: Cohort Style with Self-Paced Individual Learning
Training Length: 40 hours (27 hrs. live webinar/13 hrs. self-paced)
Peer Services for Unhoused can complement clinical services and help individuals who are unhoused or may become unhoused.
Individuals and/or families may have unique behavioral health challenges and/or co-conditions. Peer support specialists with experience being unsheltered or unhoused offer a unique perspective in supporting others meet their needs, including behavioral health, housing support, and health conditions.
Following are the core competencies for Specialization – Peer Services for Unhoused:
1. Application of Lived Experience
2. Empowerment and Promotion of Recovery
3. Co-Occurring Disorders: Mental Health and Substance Use Disorders
4. Special Populations and Cultural Considerations
5. Trauma Informed Care
6. Self-Awareness and Self-Care
7. Conflict Resolution
8. Professional Boundaries and Ethics
9. Safety and Crisis Planning
10. Systems and Resource Navigation
