The Pennsylvania Peer Support Coalition is excited to announce the first Pennsylvania statewide survey of trained Certified Peer Specialists. This is a chance for all Certified Peer Specialists to let their voices be heard!

This survey has been initiated by the Office of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services and developed in collaboration with the University of Pennsylvania, the Mental Health Association of Southeastern PA/Institute for Recovery and Community Integration, and the Pennsylvania Peer Support Coalition.

The survey focuses on your experiences with Certified Peer Specialist Training and employment opportunities. The survey will be anonymous and the data we gather will be used to help us further advance the peer support movement and better support peer specialists.

Please see the following survey announcement for more information about the survey and for instructions on how to complete it. It is an online survey, so you will need to complete the survey on a computer with an Internet connection. The URL address is included in the enclosed announcement. The survey will be available to complete online for approximately six weeks (January through early February 2010).

I hope you will take the time to complete the survey. We need to hear your voice!

Best wishes,
Nicole Darr

Nicole Darr, CPS
PA Peer Support Coalition Coordinator

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Announcement with link to the survey:

(Please note that this survey is only intended for Certified Peer Specialists in Pennsylvania. Thank you.)


Calling All Certified Peer Specialists!

Share Information about Your CPS Training and Work Experiences!

Click on the link below to complete the CPS survey
(or enter the address into your web browser – enter it exactly as you see it below)

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/DDM8X8K

Read the following for more information about the survey.

The Pennsylvania Office of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services (OMHSAS) is initiating the first Pennsylvania statewide survey of trained Certified Peer Specialists to better understand your CPS training and employment experiences with the assistance of the University of Pennsylvania Collaborative on Community Integration (www.upennrrtc.org) and the Pennsylvania Peer Support Coalition (http://www.pmhca.org/?page=coal ).

The survey is intended for individuals with the following characteristics:

1)   A Pennsylvania resident
2)   A certified peer specialist who was trained in Pennsylvania
3)   18-years of age or older

The survey is open to anyone, regardless of your current work status (i.e., unemployed, employed full- or part-time, volunteer) or the types of position you are in (e.g., peer specialist/peer support, case manager, advocacy, policy advisor, county administrator, etc.).

 The survey was designed to be completed online in about 15-20 minutes.  Your answers will be completely anonymous.  This means that nobody will know how you responded to the questions.  Taking the survey is completely voluntary.  You can choose to answer only those questions that you want to answer, however, more complete surveys will better help us understand your experiences.  Only Dr. Mark Salzer (mark.salzer@uphs.upenn.edu) and his staff at the University of Pennsylvania will have direct access to the data.

The data are to be used for OMHSAS planning purposes, but may be used in public presentations and publications.  Again, you will not be able to be identified in any way.

Please contact Olga Levshits (levshits@mail.med.upenn.edu) at the University of Pennsylvania if you have trouble accessing or completing the survey.   

Please note the survey is now closed. Thank you to everyone who completed the survey.