Unit 4: Ethical Guidelines for Peer Recovery Services
Unit 4 starts with examining how behavioral health equity is promoted through word use and then moves to looking at the underlying CRSS code of ethics. A code of ethics is a set of guidelines which are designed to set out acceptable behaviors for a particular group, association, or profession.
“The CRSS code of ethics serves to:
- Protect consumers of recovery support services
- Set a professional standard
- Increase confidence in the profession
- Identify core values which underlie the work performed
- Create accountability among CRSSS professionals
- Establish occupational identity and maturity”
(Peer Specialist Code of Ethics and Professional Standards by Colorado’s Northeast Behavioral Health Partnership, 2011)
Ethical considerations need to reflect cultural diversity and inclusion which is accomplished by understanding cultural humility. This is a good ending to a unit devoted to ethical guidelines and how best to honor different routes to recovery.
Unit Objectives:
- Describe peer recovery support services
- Examine ethical principles for working with people in recovery
- Discuss why cultural humility is important as a CRSS
