Working as a Peer Provider: What is Continuing Education

Peer Providers are individuals who work one-on-one with peers as recovery industry professionals. Peer Providers offer support, mentorship and guidance to their clients as they navigate a healthy recovery path and work to achieve long-term success. Working as a Peer Provider in any state, you will need to follow the state-specific guidelines on training, certification and compliance as you become an active Peer Provider. Many states require that after 1-2 years of certification you continue your education and/or renew your certification. In this post, we’ll dig into what continued learning is, and provide resources for furthering education courses in each state Kyros is currently employing Peer Providers in.

What is Continuing Education?

Continuing education (CEU or CE) can be defined as additional learning from a higher education institution. As this serves as a broad term that encompasses professional development, we can apply this directly to the Peer Provider profession. CEU credits are required for some licenses, registrations and certifications – this includes Peer Provider certifications.

In states that re-certification is required, CEU/CE credits must be obtained in order to successfully re-certify. Your certification could be eligible indefinitely in certain states, in which case you will need to complete a select amount of CEU “hours” annually.

Why is Continuing Your Education Important?

Continuing education allows you to maintain your status as a certified Peer Provider and continue providing services to your clients. If you do not complete your CEU credits in time, it may put you at risk of losing your certification status and block you from meeting with clients for a period of time. To avoid this, keep reading to find ways you can stay on top of your continuing education requirements.

Where to Find CEU Opportunities

Recovery Community Events
Many recovery events will include CEU/CE opportunities. If you attend activities outside of the keynote speaker, like a breakout session, this will oftentimes qualify as a valid credit. To find out if the event you’re attending offers any CEU/CE credits, visit the event page.

Educational Courses
Recovery Community Organizations will often host courses that align with continuing education. These could be peer recovery-specific courses, or classes that offer any area of professional development within the recovery industry.

Training Courses
Similar to the educational courses mentioned above, however these courses provide a temporary or long-standing training such as Narcan administration.

Where Can Kyros Peers Find CEU Credits?

At Kyros, we want to provide you with the resources you need to succeed as a professional in the recovery space. As such, a huge part of your professional development is continuing to grow your knowledge-base. This is why we created a resource for peers that focuses solely on continuing education (CEUs).

As we expand into more states across the country, we will be adding more resources specific to the state you are working in. Check out our resource page here and start exploring different opportunities for continuing education credits.