Holding the Hope – National Supervision Support Training
A comprehensive training for supervisors who lead peer support specialists in behavioral health, mental health, and substance use settings — built on evidence, grounded in recovery, and designed for the real challenges you face every day.
Who this is for
Built for the people who lead peer support
Peer supervision is its own discipline — and it deserves training built specifically for it, not adapted from clinical models. If you lead, manage, or support peer specialists in any capacity, this training is for you.
Current supervisors
You directly supervise peer support specialists and want sharper tools, clearer frameworks, and more confidence in the role.
Program managers
You oversee programs that include peer services and need to ensure peer roles are valued, protected, and positioned for impact.
Newly promoted leaders
You transitioned from a peer specialist role into supervision and are navigating the boundary and identity shifts that come with it.
Agency leadership
You shape organizational culture and want to build infrastructure that truly supports and empowers peer specialists to thrive.
Peer support is not just a service — it is a relationship. Supervising it well means understanding what makes it irreplaceable.
A core theme of Holding the Hope
What you’ll learn
A full arc of peer supervision — from foundations to daily practice
This training doesn’t start with management theory. It starts with peer support itself — what it is, why it works, and what it demands of the people who lead it.
Foundation
What peer support really is
The identity, values, and skills that make peer support distinct — and why that distinctiveness is the whole point. We explore what lived experience brings that no clinical credential can replicate.
Practice
Sharing lived experience well
The principle of sharing the message, not the mess. How to coach peers on using their stories with intention — to inspire hope, build trust, and connect without overwhelming.
Role clarity
Role fidelity and peer drift
What drift looks like, why it happens, and how to name it early. Concrete strategies for keeping peer specialists in their lane — and building organizations that support them to stay there.
Culture
Recovery language and culture
Why language matters more than we think — and how to lead with courage when non-recovery language appears. Culture as the most powerful intervention available to a peer supervisor.
Equity
Cultural humility and stigma
Public, self, and structural stigma in behavioral health. How to recognize it, address it directly, and model cultural humility as a daily leadership practice.
Leadership
Coaching, mentoring, and inspiring
The traits and qualities of effective peer supervisors — and practical approaches to developing each peer’s unique strengths while holding the team accountable to shared values.
Rights & law
Employee relations and the law
Protected classes, workplace discrimination, reasonable accommodations, mandatory reporting. What supervisors need to know — and the agency resources available to support them.
Sustainability
Self-care and work-life balance
What it means to model sustainable practice, not just talk about it. Policies, behaviors, and norms that build a culture of genuine wellbeing — for you and your team.
The evidence base
Grounded in SAMHSA’s 10 Guiding Principles of Peer Support
This training is built on SAMHSA’s definition of recovery as a process of change through which individuals improve their health and wellness, live a self-directed life, and strive to reach their full potential.
That foundation isn’t just theoretical. It shapes every conversation we have about role fidelity, language, supervision practice, and what peer support is actually for.
Peer support is both an evidence-based and best-practice model. This training helps you lead it as one.
Hopeful. Person-driven. Recognizing many pathways to recovery. Holistic. Guided by peer support principles. Culturally responsive. Addressing trauma. Built on respect. Focused on strengths and responsibility. Deeply relational.
Real challenges, real practice
We don’t just define these challenges — we sit in them together
Through discussion, breakout activities, and real frameworks, you’ll build the instincts and language to navigate the moments that define peer supervision.
Scenario
The drift no one named
A peer specialist is increasingly asked to fill in on tasks outside their role — scheduling, documentation, covering for clinical staff. Nobody named it as drift. It just happened. How do you course-correct without shame?
Scenario
The story that went too far
A peer shared too much personal history during a group session — unintentionally overwhelming the people they were trying to support. How do you coach that conversation in a way that builds, not breaks?
Scenario
Language in the meeting room
A colleague refers to a client in a way that’s clearly not recovery-oriented. The peer specialist looks to you. You’re in a meeting. What do you do in that moment — and what do you say afterward?
Scenario
Promoted from within
You moved from peer specialist to supervisor six months ago. One of your former peers is struggling. You’re not sure how much of your own story to share — or whether that’s still your role.
What effective peer supervisors look like
You’ll recognize these qualities. This training helps you deepen them.
Effective peer supervisors aren’t born with a set of pre-loaded instincts. They develop them — through practice, reflection, and the right kind of support.
Curious and open to learning
Fair, approachable, and consistent
Deeply committed to role fidelity
Clear on boundaries and ethics
Uses positional power to correct imbalance
Insists on recovery-based language
Includes peer voice in decisions
Identifies and grows individual strengths
Models “power with” — not “power over”
Courageous enough to lean in
Sustainability
Who is holding hope for you?
Supervisors of peer specialists are asked to hold hope not just professionally, but as a living demonstration of what recovery and wellness can look like. That’s a profound responsibility — and it requires its own kind of tending.
We’ll explore what sustainable peer supervision actually looks like — not as a platitude, but as a daily practice.
Join us
Ready to deepen your practice?
Whether you’re new to supervising peers or you’ve been doing it for years, this training meets you where you are.
Tuesday, July 14th, 2026
10:00 AM – 3:00 PM
Virtual
Zoom
$50 per seat
This Peer Support Supervision Training is NOT approved for Washington State (WA) certification. This curriculum does not meet the specific criteria set by Washington State regulatory bodies.
Questions? Contact us at info@holdingthehope.com