In this follow-up to a rich Part 1 conversation, guest experts Lyn Legere, MS, CPS, and Crystal Page return to continue exploring the value peer support specialists bring to Individual Placement and Support (IPS) employment teams. Lyn, a senior training associate at the Boston University Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation, brings more than twenty-five years of experience in recovery-oriented and peer-led services, including building North Carolina's Employment Peer Mentor (EPM) training program. Crystal, an Employment Peer Mentor with Coastal Horizons Alliance for Mental Health in Wilmington, NC—and a graduate of Lyn's training—shares what the role looks like in daily practice. Moderated by Lisa Krystynak and sponsored by NIDILRR, the session is driven entirely by audience questions.
Together they explore the unique power of lived "vocational recovery" experience and tackle practical questions from participants across the country: how North Carolina funded the EPM role, why peer support remains voluntary and caseload-free by design, strategies for building provider buy-in as states like California adopt IPS, setting boundaries while remaining genuinely helpful, supporting people who use substances (IPS requires the desire to work, not the desire to recover), and the vital role of benefits counseling in easing fears about returning to work.
AMAs are not presentations but rather hour-long interactive question & answer webinars with an expert in employment. Regardless of whether you are a person living with a mental health condition, a family member, an administrator of a service, a provider, or a researcher, people from anywhere get answers to their questions.
This webinar is also available as podcasts on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube Music
This event was supported by funding from the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research. NIDILRR is a Center within the Administration for Community Living (ACL), Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The contents of this project do not necessarily represent the policy of NIDILRR, ACL, HHS, and you should not assume endorsement by the Federal Government.
