Strengthening New Mexico’s Peer Workforce
Wherever You Are, There’s a Place to Start.
The Peer Empowerment Center supports you throughout your journey into the peer profession—from exploring whether becoming a CPSW is right for you, to earning your certification, to building a meaningful and sustainable career.
Build Your Foundation → Become a CPSW → Grow Your Career
You don't have to start at the beginning. We'll meet you where you are and help you identify the support that fits your goals.
CPSW Career Support That Fits Your Needs
Build Your Foundation
Explore the Peer Profession. Build Stability. Prepare for What’s Next.
Interested in becoming a Certified Peer Support Worker (CPSW), but not quite sure where to begin? Build Your Foundation is designed to help you prepare for the journey ahead.
You’ll work one-on-one with a Peer Empowerment Center Advisor to identify your goals, address barriers that may make it difficult to pursue certification or employment, and create an individualized path forward. Whether you need help building greater stability or simply want to learn more about becoming a peer professional, we’ll meet you where you are.
Support may include: individualized goal planning and case management; connections to housing, food, transportation, healthcare, financial, and community resources; recovery and wellness support; identifying barriers to certification or employment; exploring the CPSW role and peer career opportunities; and preparing to begin the certification process.
Your next step: When you’re ready, we’ll help you move forward toward becoming a CPSW.
Become a CPSW
Training. Preparation. Certification.
Ready to become a Certified Peer Support Worker? Become a CPSW provides hands-on support throughout the certification journey so you don’t have to navigate the process alone.
We’ll help you understand certification requirements, connect with training opportunities, prepare for the CPSW exam, and work through the steps required to earn your credential.
Support may include: guidance through CPSW eligibility and certification requirements; assistance with registration and required documentation; connection to approved CPSW training; study groups and individualized study support; exam preparation and testing resources; help navigating the certification process; and financial assistance for one eligible exam retest, up to $100, when needed.
Your next step: Earn your CPSW credential and begin building your career as a peer professional.
Grow Your Career
Build Your Skills. Find Your Place. Invest in Your Future.
Becoming certified is a major accomplishment—but your professional development doesn’t stop there. Grow Your Career supports CPSWs as they enter the workforce, strengthen their skills, maintain their certification, and pursue new opportunities.
Whether you’re looking for your first peer position, adjusting to a new role, completing continuing education, or thinking about where your career can take you next, the PEC is here to support your continued growth.
Support may include: one-on-one professional mentorship; continuing education and CEU opportunities; CPSW recertification support; résumé development and job-search assistance; interview preparation; employment readiness; connections to employment opportunities and peer-serving organizations; professional and workplace support; early employment support during your first 90 days; and opportunities for career advancement and leadership development.
Your next step: Build a sustainable career, continue investing in yourself, and discover where your lived experience and professional skills can take you.
Technical Training and Assistance for Organizations
Strengthen Your Peer Workforce. Strengthen Your Organization.
Building a strong peer workforce takes more than hiring people with lived experience. Organizations also need the knowledge, systems, supervision, and ongoing professional development necessary to support peers while protecting the integrity of the peer role.
The Peer Empowerment Center provides Technical Training & Assistance (TTA) to organizations that employ, supervise, or are preparing to integrate Certified Peer Support Workers into their teams.
Whether your organization is building a peer program for the first time or addressing challenges within an established peer workforce, our support is designed to be practical, responsive, and grounded in the principles of peer support.
Reactive & Responsive TTA
Get support when questions and challenges arise.
Organizations don't always need a lengthy consultation—they may need knowledgeable support to work through a specific challenge. The PEC provides responsive technical assistance to help organizations address emerging needs related to their peer workforce.
Support may include consultation around peer roles and responsibilities, professional boundaries, workforce challenges, organizational practices, peer fidelity, team integration, and other issues affecting the successful delivery of peer support.
Peer Workforce Implementation
Build peer services with intention from the beginning.
For organizations developing or expanding peer services, the PEC can provide guidance throughout implementation.
We can assist with defining peer roles, developing appropriate workflows, integrating peers into multidisciplinary teams, establishing organizational expectations, identifying training needs, and building systems that support the unique value of lived experience without allowing the peer role to become diluted into traditional clinical or case-management functions.
Peer Supervision Support
Support the people who support your peer workforce.
Effective supervision is essential to peer workforce development and retention. The PEC provides training and technical assistance to organizations and supervisors working with CPSWs.
Support can include understanding effective peer supervision, maintaining appropriate boundaries between clinical and peer roles, supporting professional growth, navigating workplace challenges, promoting ethical peer practice, and creating supervision structures that preserve the values and fidelity of peer support.
Continuing Education & Staff Development
Invest in the continued growth of your team.
The PEC provides continuing education opportunities designed to strengthen the knowledge, skills, and professional development of Certified Peer Support Workers.
Organizations may access individual CEU opportunities or work with the PEC to develop training and CEU packages for their staff or team based on identified workforce-development needs.
Offerings may include scheduled PEC trainings, targeted professional-development opportunities, team-based learning, and customized training packages designed around the needs of an organization's peer workforce.
Need Something Different?
TTA should respond to the needs of the organization—not force every organization into the same solution.
If your organization is experiencing a peer workforce challenge that isn't listed here, connect with the Peer Empowerment Center. We'll work with you to better understand the need, identify appropriate support, and determine how the PEC can assist.
Build Better Systems for Peer Support
The PEC is committed to strengthening the peer workforce from both sides of the employment relationship—helping peers become prepared, confident professionals while helping organizations build environments where peer professionals can contribute, grow, and thrive.
Looking for TTA, training, or CEUs for your organization?
Connect with the Peer Empowerment Center to get started.
