Connections Counseling and Wellness (CCW) at 402 Main Street in Tarkio is pleased to welcome their three peer specialists – Julie Koop, Sandi Riley, and Dusty Slemp.

CCW’s peer specialist services are provided by a grant. This project is supported by the Atchison County Health Department and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as part of a financial assistance award.

Peer support encompasses a range of activities and interactions between people who share similar experiences of being diagnosed with mental health conditions, substance use disorders, or both. This mutuality – often called “peerness” – between a peer support worker and person in or seeking recovery promotes connection and inspires hope.

Peer support offers a level of acceptance, understanding, and validation not found in many other professional relationships. By sharing their own lived experience and practical guidance, peer support workers help people to develop their own goals, create strategies for self-empowerment, and take concrete steps towards building fulfilling, self-determined lives for themselves.

A peer support worker is someone with the lived experience of recovery from a mental health condition, substance use disorder, or both. They provide support to others experiencing similar challenges. They provide non-clinical, strengths-based support.

Peer support workers can help break down barriers of experience and understanding, as well as power dynamics that may get in the way of working with other members of the treatment team. The peer support worker’s role is to assist people with finding and following their own recovery paths, without judgment, expectation, rules, or requirements.

Peer support workers practice in a range of settings, including peer-run organizations, recovery community centers, recovery residences, drug courts and other criminal justice settings, hospital emergency departments, child welfare agencies, homeless shelters, and behavioral health and primary care settings. In addition to providing the many types of assistance encompassed in the peer support role, they conduct a variety of outreach and engagement activities.

CCW also provides iPads for those who have transportation difficulties. These can be used for support groups or mental health services, CPS, etc. For more information, contact Connections Counseling and Wellness to sign up or find out more information. Call 660-623-6055 or email office@ccw-mo.com.

(This project is supported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of a financial assistance award totaling $35,569,951 with 100 percent funded by CDC/HHS. The contents are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement, by CDC/HHS, or the U.S. Government.)