Glossary

Term	Definition
Accountability	Accountability is an organization’s willingness to explain its actions to its stakeholders. It can be applied to how an organization spends its resources, the way organizations use the resources they raise to accomplish their mission.
Advisory Council	A selected group that serves to counsel and guide the programs (often a specific program) of an organization.
Affiliational support	Support provided to individuals or groups to facilitate interpersonal contact, promoting the learning of social and recreational skills, creating community,and helping individuals acquire a sense of belonging and connection.
Allies	Individuals with a deep understanding of addiction and recovery who are strong supporters of individuals in recovery and the recovery community. While rarely designated as peer leaders, these individuals may play significant roles in the PRSS program.
Board of Directors	A governing body that operates in a stewardship role to oversee mission, planning, and fiscal matters, and has legal accountability for corporations, including nonprofit ones.
Community Recovery	A voluntary process through which a community uses the assertive resolution of AOD-related problems as a vehicle for collective healing, community renewal, and enhanced intergenerational resilience. Voluntary involves community consciousness, community commitment, and community action. Source: White, W., Evans, A.C. and Lamb, R. (2010). Community recovery.
Coordinators	Personnel hired to administer the peer program. They may or may not be in recovery.
Cultural and Linguistic Competence	Having the capacity to function effectively as an individual and an organization within the context of the cultural beliefs, behaviors, and needs presented by consumers and their communities. A set of congruent behaviors, attitudes, and policies that come together in a system, agency, or among professionals that enables effective work in cross?cultural situations.
Culture	Integrated patterns of human behavior that include the language, thoughts, communications, actions, customs, beliefs, values, and institutions of racial, ethnic, religious, or social groups.
Emotional Support	Support in which empathy, caring, or concern are demonstrated and used to bolster a person’s self esteem or confidence.
Family Member	Individuals who have been closely involved with another person during that individual’s addiction and recovery. Sometimes these individuals provide social support and services to other family members.
Governance	The system of rules, practices and processes by which an organization is directed and controlled. It involves balancing the interests of the many stakeholders of an organization. Corporations (whether for-profit or non-profit) are governed by a board of directors.
Group Facilitator	A person who is trained to facilitate or lead recovery-oriented group activities that are organized to promote and support recovery and/or provide education about recovery.
Host Organization	A nonprofit organization that hosts or includes a PRSS program, which is usually operated as a project within the facilitating organization. The host organization may not be comprised primarily of people in recovery. It hosts a peer-run PRSS and ensures that recovery community members are involved in all aspects of program design and implementation. Examples of host organizations include: treatment and mental health agencies; community service centers; Criminal justice, HIV/AIDS and other allied organizations.
Informational Support	Support in which knowledge or information is shared, referrals for needed services are made, and/or training in life or vocational skills is provided.
Instrumental (practical) Support	Services that provide concrete assistance to help others accomplish tasks.
Participatory Processes	Participatory processes are methods used to gain the active participation of individuals in a idea generation or decision making process. The primary goal of participatory process is to create productive dialogue; often a second goal is to develop positive solutions. The specific method used depends on on what the participants want to achieve, the size of the group, the complexity of the ideas or issues being discussed, and the length of time available.
Peer	An individual who seeks help from a PRSS program in establishing or maintaining his or her recovery. Also called a participant, member.
Peer Leader	A person in stable recovery who provides social support on a peer-to-peer basis. Sometimes peer leaders are staff and sometimes they are volunteers. Also called peer worker.
Peer Recovery Resource Connector	A person who helps the peer connect to professional and nonprofessional services and resources available in the community that support the peer’s individual needs on the road to recovery. This role is often embedded in a larger recovery coach role.
Peer Recovery Support Services (PRSS)	Services designed and delivered by people who have experienced both addiction and recovery to help others initiate, stabilize, and sustain recovery from addiction. The services are considered as forms of social support and are non-clinical.
Peer Worker	A person in stable recovery who provides social support on a peer-to-peer basis. Sometimes peer leaders are staff and sometimes they are volunteers. Also called peer leader.
Performance Improvement	Performance improvement (also called quality improvement) is a pro-active and continuous process of identifying areas for betterment. It is both a problem-solving and a opportunity-based approach in which organizations seek to (1) fix underlying causes of persistent/systemic problems; (2) prevent or decrease the likelihood of future problems and; (3) identify and test new approaches to service, with the aim of achieving better results/outcomes.
PRSS Programs	An organized set of peer recovery support services.
PRSS Workforce	The people, both paid staff and volunteers, who work within a PRSS program.
Quality Assurance	Quality assurance is a process of meeting quality standards and assuring that peer services are of a basic quality. In quality assurance processes, organizations seek and use information retrospectively to examine why a particular standard is not being (or was not) met, and to change practices to ensure that the standard is met. (See also performance improvement.)
Recovery Capital	Resources, both internal and external, that support a person’s recovery. A recovery capital assessment informs a recovery plan, by identifying strengths and available resources and identifying resources that need to be developed and made available.
Recovery Coach	A person who has more recovery experience than the peer/member being served and encourages, motivates, and supports a peer/member who is seeking, initiating, and/or sustaining recovery from addiction. Coaching often involves a recovery capital assessment and help in developing a recovery plan.
Recovery Community Center	A location where a full range of peer recovery support services are offered.
Recovery Planning	The process in which a Peer Leader assists a participant in developing and following a self-directed plan for achieving and sustaining recovery across all domains of life. Recovery planning is based on an assessment of an individual’s goals and the strengths and capacities that he or she will use or rely upon to achieve these goals.
Recovery Community Organization	A recovery community organization is an independent, organized group composed of persons in recovery (from addiction) and their allies. An RCO is: governed by individuals who are representative of and responsive to the local recovery community grounded in the values and principles of the recovery community guided by genuine input from members of the recovery community, which is gathered via participatory processes RCOs offer peer recovery support services, engage in recovery-focused community education and outreach, and pursue recovery-oriented advocacy. They serve as a bridge between diverse communities of recovery, the addiction treatment community, governmental agencies, the criminal justice system, the larger network of health and human services providers and systems and the broader recovery support resources of the extended community. In a service-focused RCO, peer support is the core around which other supports or services are based (rather than being adjunct, ancillary or aftercare). Service-focused RCOs provide access to four types of peer-based social support: emotional, affiliational, informational, and instrumental
Recovery Values	Principles that underlie recovery, and bind the vision of a PRSS program to operations.
Social Support	The availability of people whom the individual trusts and who make one feel cared for and valued as a person and socially affiliated with others. Common sources of social support include family, friends, co-workers and peers. Social support can take both tangible and intangible forms. There are four key types of social support services: Emotional support: Support in which empathy, caring, or concern are demonstrated and used to bolster a person’s self esteem or confidence. Informational support: Support in which knowledge or information is shared, referrals for needed services are made, and/or training in life or vocational skills is provided. Instrumental (practical) support: Services that provide concrete assistance to help others accomplish tasks. Affiliational support: Support provided to individuals or groups to facilitate interpersonal contact, promoting the learning of social and recreational skills, creating community,and helping individuals acquire a sense of belonging and connection.
Stakeholder	An individual or group that has an investment (or stake) inthe program by lending support or resources (i.e. experience, money, politicalclout, credibility, etc.) or because it shares common constituencies.
Transparency	Transparency is an organization’s willingness publish and make available critical data about the organization.

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