Pay is commensurate with experience within a range of $18.75 - $22.32 per hour. Full time, non-exempt, benefits eligible. Bert Nash offers excellent benefits which include medical, dental, vision, KPERS retirement, life insurance, an Employee Assistance Program (EAP) providing free counseling and resources, and generous PTO.

Caring. Hope. Giving back. Our mission at the Bert Nash Center as the Community Mental Health Center (CMHC) of Douglas County is to advance the health of the community through comprehensive behavioral health services responsive to evolving needs and changing environments. We accomplish this by believing in our team. Each person that works for the Bert Nash Center contributes directly to the success of our clients, organization, and community. Our values of compassion, integrity, equity and hope reflect in everything we do.

RESPONSIBILITIES include but not limited to:

• Complete certification as a Kansas Certified Peer Specialist in Training and begin process of meeting requirements to apply for Level Two certification as a Kansas Certified Peer Specialist (MH), within first 90 days of employment.
• Will complete Level Two certification as KCPS within first 6 months of employment.
• Understand the crisis cycle and how to identify and safely support managing through stages of crisis.
• Knowledge and understanding of the Five Stages of Recovery
• Model successful behaviors, strategies, and share lived experience to assist clients in crisis with goal setting as part of their safety, wellness, recovery, and action planning.
• Responding to the needs of families, care givers, or supports is a critical component of stabilizing the individual in crisis and can help reduce the possibility of subsequent crisis situations. Peers in crisis services can be educating an individual's family, care takers, or supports on self-care and how to best provide support to their loved ones.
• Maintains recognition that recovery from common conditions that affect behavioral health is a process of change, that the recovery process varies by person, and is based on social and contextual factors specific to the individual as well as where the individual is within their stages of change and recovery journey.
• Attends agency and team meetings as specified.

REQUIREMENTS FOR CANDIDATES include but not limited to:

• This role requires ability to work with persons with severe and persistent mental illness, serious emotional disturbance, and/or substance abuse issues, especially those actively experiencing a psychiatric crisis.
• This role requires the ability and willingness to call upon one's resilience and personal recovery story and similar lived experience.
• This role requires the willingness and ability to respond to acute psychiatric referrals which the MRT responds to, which may include and are not limited to Suicidal Threat, Aggression, Self-Care Failure, Lack of capacity, Nudity. This position requires a signed waiver.
• This role requires the ability to work independently and as a member of the Mobile Response Team; possess demonstrated interpersonal skills and ability to react effectively in a variety of human service situations.
• This role requires believing in recovery for a range of behavioral health conditions or circumstances and believes in one's ability to develop empowerment and self-advocacy skills.
• Candidates will be sustaining positive changes achieved in their recovery journey and seeking ongoing success and personal growth as part of the maintenance stage. They are willing to face challenges unique to providing acute crisis support wherever the need is in the community, including the complexity of navigating care and support without the unnecessary use of law enforcement or emergency departments.

This position requires: the ability to interpret written materials and effectively present and respond to questions; Reliable transportation; and a valid, unrestricted driver's license and proof of current car insurance with ability to drive both during daylight and night hours; Ability to complete trainings for evidence-based practices in Community Behavioral Health Care, peer services, and crisis services; Prior computer experience and basic computer fluency; Must be able to achieve within one's first 3 months of employment a working competency in the management and use of the Center's electronic medical record (EMR) software as demonstrated by timely and accurate documentation of the clinical record; An ability to exercise sound independent judgment; Flexibility in assigned working hours; An energetic and positive approach to the rapidly evolving changes and challenges of a complex workplace; and A commitment to interdisciplinary and community mental health center approaches.