Lead Peer Specialist

Lead Peer Specialist

Department: Department of Veterans Affairs

Location(s): Tucson, Arizona

Salary Range: $68573 - $89142 Per Year

Job Summary: The position leads a team comprised of Peer Specialists and may Lead Without Compensation (WOC) Peer Specialists, within a common supervisory structure, to provide services, integrate processes, and meet goals of peer support service programming at the facility. As the leader of a team of peer support providers, the position facilitates, coordinates, coaches, and problem solves with the members of the peer support provider team.

Major Duties:

• Duties include, but are not limited to: The position is an active member of facility advisory and/or leadership committees and coordinates work efforts and advocates for the needs of Veterans, peer support programs, and initiatives. The position provides guidance to peer support providers and coordinates peer support activities. The position also supports other peer support providers who provide a range of services to assist the Veterans in regaining independence within the community and mastery over their own recovery process. The position serves as the operational peer specialist Subject Matter Expert (SME) and liaison to Medical Center/Healthcare System leadership. As a SME, the position educates program managers and their staff on the visions, values, and delivery of peer support services. The position is involved in interviewing candidates and offering a perspective on the candidates' experience and recovery. The position ensures a high level of customer service is provided to Veterans and co-workers. The position establishes and/or partners with a resource network of community mental health organizations. At conferences and public events, the position may represent the Medical Center and make presentations. Ensures that the organization's strategic plan, mission, vision, and values are communicated to the peer support providers they lead and integrated into the team's strategies, goals, objectives, work plans, products, and services; Articulates and communicates to the peer support providers they lead the assignments, projects, problems to be solved, actionable events, milestones, and/or program issues under review as well as the deadlines and time frames for completion. The position communicates the supervisor's instructions to the team; Coaches the peer support providers they lead in the selection and application of appropriate problem-solving methods and techniques, provides advice on work methods, practices and procedures, and assists the team and/or individual members in identifying the parameters of viable solutions; Maintains awareness of the status and progress of peer support providers' work and makes day-to-day adjustments to ensure their work aligns with program goals and processes; Leads the team in identifying, distributing, and balancing workload and tasks in accordance with established work flow, skill level and/or occupational specialization; makes adjustments to accomplish the workload in accordance with established priorities to ensure timely accomplishment of assigned team tasks; and ensures that each team member has an integral role in developing the final team products and services; Non-Lead Peer Specialist Duties: The position participates in the service, training, consultation, and other professional activities of a VHA health care services treatment program and functions as a fully vested member of a multidisciplinary team. In this capacity, the position completes assignments based on comprehensive peer support knowledge and recognition by others of demonstrated superior skill and proven sound judgment in working with Veterans with verycomplex mental illnesses and challenging situations that require effective communication and decision-making skills. Teach and role model the value of every individual's recovery experience. Model effective coping techniques, holistic wellness, and self-help strategies. Assist in obtaining services that suit the individual's personal recovery and wellness needs. Assist Veterans in exploring their interests and options for making improvements in life functioning areas such as housing, employment, relationships, and community engagement (i.e. assist Veterans in exploring options for obtaining decent and affordable housing and make referrals to appropriate VA housing programs; support Veterans vocational choices and refer them to appropriate resources to support employment). Inform Veterans about VA and community supports and resources, including how to effectively utilize them in the recovery and wellness process. Community resources may include, but are not limited to consumer-run organizations, self-help and mutual support services, Social Security offices, Department of Family and Children services, YMCAs, libraries, restaurants, Veteran Service Organizations(VSOs), and the Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD). Work Schedule: Monday thru Friday, 8:00am to 4:30pm work schedule, but work schedule may be adjusted to meet the needs of the service. Virtual: This is not a virtual position. Position Description/PD#: Lead Peer Specialist/PD99338-S Relocation/Recruitment Incentives: Not Authorized Critical Skills Incentive (CSI): Not Approved Permanent Change of Station (PCS): Not Authorized

Qualifications: To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement, 03/03/2026. Time-In-Grade Requirement: Applicants who are current Federal employees and have held a GS grade any time in the past 52 weeks must also meet time-in-grade requirements by the closing date of this announcement. For a GS-10 position you must have served 52 weeks at the GS-9. The grade may have been in any occupation, but must have been held in the Federal service. An SF-50 that shows your time-in-grade eligibility must be submitted with your application materials. If the most recent SF-50 has an effective date within the past year, it may not clearly demonstrate you possess one-year time-in-grade, as required by the announcement. In this instance, you must provide an additional SF-50 that clearly demonstrates one-year time-in-grade. Note: Time-In-Grade requirements also apply to former Federal employees applying for reinstatement as well as current employees applying for Veterans Employment Opportunities Act of 1998 (VEOA) appointment. You may qualify based on your experience as described below: Basic Requirements for Peer Specialists: Statutory Requirements. Section 405 of Public Law 110-387, as codified in 38 U.S.C. 7402(b)(13), established that to be eligible to receive appointment to a Peer Specialist position, a person must: (1) be a veteran who has recovered or is recovering from a mental health condition; and (2) be certified by - (a) a not-for-profit entity engaged in peer specialist training as having met such criteria as the Secretary shall establish for a peer specialist position; or (b) a State as having satisfied relevant State requirements for a peer specialist position. Length of Experience as a Consumer of Mental Health Recovery Services. Veterans eligible under 38 U.S.C. 7402(b)(13) must have spent a minimum of 1 year in personal recovery from a mental health condition. NOTE: You MUST provide copies of your DD-214 and Peer Specialist Certification, with your application package. Specialized Experience: You must have one year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the next lower grade GS-9 in the normal line of progression for the occupation in the organization. Examples of specialized experience would typically include, but are not limited to: progressively responsible, post-personal mental health recovery experience as a mentor providing support to others in mental health and/or addiction recovery, a recovery advocate directly involved with consumers of mental health services, or equivalent work involving in-person communication to support others in mental health recovery. Assists in the development of training peer specialists and Veterans seeking to become peer specialists. At this level work will have been performed with considerable independence and you are responsible for making recommendations to the interdisciplinary treatment team that can be relied on for soundness of judgment and maturity of insight on problem cases. You will be rated on the following Competencies for this position: Decision Making Interpersonal Skills Lead or Supervise Teaches Others Therapy and Counseling Experience refers to paid and unpaid experience, including volunteer work done through National Service programs (e.g., Peace Corps, AmeriCorps) and other organizations (e.g., professional; philanthropic; religions; spiritual; community; student; social). Volunteer work helps build critical competencies, knowledge, and skills and can provide valuable training and experience that translates directly to paid employment. You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer experience. Note: A full year of work is considered to be 35-40 hours of work per week. Part-time experience will be credited on the basis of time actually spent in appropriate activities. Applicants wishing to receive credit for such experience must indicate clearly the nature of their duties and responsibilities in each position and the number of hours a week spent in such employment. Physical Requirements: The work is primarily sedentary. Typically, the position sits to do the work. However, there may be some walking, standing, bending, carrying of light items (such as books, papers), accessing transportation, and/or driving a government vehicle. The work requires patience and control of emotions. The work may require occasional use of appropriate techniques with Veterans who present a danger to them self or others. For more information on these qualification standards, please visit the United States Office of Personnel Management's website at https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/classification-qualifications/general-schedule-qualification-standards/.

How to Apply: All applicants are encouraged to apply online. To apply for this position, you must complete the questionnaire and submit the documentation specified in the Required Documents section below. The complete application package must be submitted by 11:59 PM (ET) on 03/03/2026 to receive consideration. To preview the questionnaire click https://apply.usastaffing.gov/ViewQuestionnaire/12845299. To begin, click Apply Online to create a USA JOBS account or log in to your existing account. Follow the prompts to select your USA JOBS resume and/or other supporting documents and complete the occupational questionnaire. Click Submit My Answers to submit your application package. NOTE: It is your responsibility to ensure your responses and appropriate documentation is submitted prior to the closing date. Beginning September 27, 2025, Federal agencies will only accept resumes up to two pages in length to comply with the Merit Hiring Plan. Resumes longer than two pages will result in ineligibility for further consideration for the position. USAJOBS will not allow you to upload or build resumes longer than two pages, and you will need to update the resumes in your profile before applying for a job. Resumes should include information relevant to the knowledge, skills, abilities, and competencies of the position to which you are applying. VA is unable to make assumptions about qualifications if not clearly listed. Resumes must be legible so they can be reviewed for eligibility, minimum qualifications and other position requirements listed in the job announcement. If initial application submission is updated and resubmitted with a new resume, only the most current resume will be reviewed for consideration. Your resume must be 5MB or less. We recommend saving and uploading your resume as a PDF to maintain formatting and number of pages. We also accept GIF, JPG, JPEG, PNG, RTF, TXT, PDF, ODT or Word (DOC or DOCX). We do not accept PDF portfolio files. We recommend using a sans-serif font size like Lato, if available. Other widely available options are Calibri, Helvetica, Arial, Verdana, Open San Source Sans Pro, Roboto or Noro Sans. Make your page margins 0.5 inches. Consider using 14-point size font for titles and 10-point for the main text in your resume. The resume builder can help you create a resume using these recommendations and uses the information in your USAJOBS profile to help you get started. Helpful Hints for Creating a Two-Page Resume: Prioritize most relevant and recent experience Use concise, results focused language Align language from the job announcement Focus on demonstrating skills and competencies Remove outdated or unrelated experience Use the USAJOBS resume builder Additional guidance on this new requirement and resume building tools can be found at: https://help.usajobs.gov/faq/application/documents/resume/page-limit https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/hiring-information/merit-hiring-plan-resources/applicant-guidance-on-the-two-page-resume-limit/ Special Employment Consideration: VA encourages persons with disabilities to apply, including those eligible for hiring under 5 CFR 213.3102(u), Schedule A, Appointment of persons with disabilities [i.e., intellectual disabilities, severe physical disabilities, or psychiatric disabilities], and/or Disabled veterans with a compensable service-connected disability of 30% or more. Contact the Agency Contact for information on how to apply under this appointment authority via the Selective Placement Coordinator. The Interagency Career Transition Assistance Plan (ICTAP) and Career Transition Assistance Plan (CTAP) provide eligible displaced Federal/VA competitive service employees with selection priority over other candidates for competitive service vacancies. To be qualified you must submit appropriate documentation (a copy of the agency notice, your most recent performance rating, and your most recent SF-50 noting current position, grade level, and duty location) and be found well-qualified for this vacancy. To be well-qualified: applicants must possess experience that exceeds the minimum qualifications of the position including all selective factors, and who are proficient in most of the required competencies of the job. Information about ICTAP and CTAP eligibility is on OPM's Career Transition Resources website at http://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/workforce-restructuring/employee-guide-to-career-transition/. During the application process you may have an option to opt-in to make your resume available to hiring managers in the agency who have similar positions. Opting in does not impact your application for this announcement, nor does it guarantee further consideration for additional positions.

Application Deadline: 2026-03-03