Peer Support Specialist Certification in Wyoming: Training, Hours and Medicaid Rules

Wyoming has a single peer specialist credential, the Wyoming Certified Peer Specialist, issued by Recover Wyoming.

A Wyoming Certified Peer Specialist Certification Board, made up of Recover Wyoming staff and Board of Directors, determines the application process, reviews initial applications and recertification documents, and issues the certificate.

Three optional endorsements sit on top of the certification: Mastery, Whole Health and Forensic Peer Specialist.

No family, youth or supervisor credential appears in the documents read, so a peer wanting a specialty endorsement is limited to these three.

The flyer's definition covers your own substance use disorder and/or mental health experiences, with recovery of at least two years, and its expanded definition describes a personal history of substance use disorder or a personal mental health diagnosis, in each case with at least two years engaged in recovery.

The application turns that into an attestation and asks for your recovery date plus a description of how you will use your lived experience to help others.

A family member's experience does not appear in the definition as written.

Initial training must last at least 46 contact hours across the four IC&RC domains — Advocacy 10 hours, Recovery/Wellness Support 10, Mentoring & Education 10, Ethical Responsibility 16 — and topic areas must include trauma-informed care, cultural sensitivity, whole health, substance use and mental health.

The application allows 36 contact hours if you are eligible for the grandparenting period, but the documents read do not state who qualifies or until when.

Training can be Recover Wyoming's own or another IC&RC-approved training or curriculum.

You also need a high school diploma or equivalent, attest to being at least 18 years of age, and the flyer requires that you live in Wyoming at least 51% of the year.

Before you apply you document 500 hours of volunteer or paid work experience related to the four IC&RC domains, verified with letters from each agency, and 25 hours of supervision related to the IC&RC domains, verified by each supervisor.

Wyoming issues no trainee or provisional certificate in the documents read: the hours come first, the certification after, which makes the volunteer or job you stack hours in the qualifying step.

One wording difference is worth knowing — the flyer's document checklist describes the work hours as over the past year, while the application you sign says the 500 hours must have occurred within the past two years.

If your hours are older than a year, confirm the window with Recover Wyoming before applying.

Certification ends in the IC&RC Peer Recovery exam, which the flyer's standards list requires you to pass.

The IC&RC develops and administers the exam; Recover Wyoming's flyer says candidates register for a convenient date and time and take it online with remote proctoring.

The initial certification fee is $175 total, of which $80 registers you as an IC&RC exam candidate and $95 is the certification fee; all fees are nonrefundable, and credit-card payments carry an additional fee.

Everything on the Medicaid side comes from Recover Wyoming's own application form, which asks whether your organization bills client services to Medicaid.

The application names the employing organization, if it is a Medicaid provider, as the one that bills, and the services must be identified in the client's treatment plan.

The Wyoming Medicaid rule or manual was not read and the funding vehicle is not stated in the sources read, so treat coverage as certifier-stated and confirm it with the employer and Wyoming Medicaid.

Supervision enters the file twice.

First, initial certification requires 25 hours of supervision related to the four IC&RC domains, verified by letter from each supervisor.

Second, the application asks your employer to name your direct supervisor, to give their licensing credentials if applicable (i.e., LCSW, LPC), and to briefly describe the supervision you will receive — a form field, not a rule.

The sources read name no supervisor credential, ratio or frequency for billing, so check supervision expectations with the employing organization before you take a Wyoming peer job.

Recover Wyoming holds Wyoming's seat on the IC&RC for the Peer Recovery credential, and its flyer credits IC&RC with facilitating reciprocity between member boards — so an IC&RC peer credential earned through another member board is what the reciprocity system covers.

The documents read do not set out Wyoming's reciprocity application, fees or terms, so ask Recover Wyoming what it accepts before you repeat training you may not need.

Certification also requires that you live in Wyoming at least 51% of the year, which matters if you plan to keep working across a state line.

WCPS certification is valid for two years from the initial certification date, and renewal requires 20 hours of continuing education earned within that two-year window, of which 6 hours must be peer-specific ethics training, plus the $75 renewal fee.

The renewal document bars duplicate courses within a cycle.

Recover Wyoming recommends submitting the renewal application 30 to 90 days before expiration; if you lapse, a $50 reinstatement fee on top of the $75 covers one day to 12 months late, and after 12 months you reapply under all current requirements.

Each endorsement's application is renewed with the certification renewal, and Whole Health and Forensic carry their own continued-qualification requirements — Whole Health: presenting the curriculum to at least 8 peers/groups in the previous 24 months with at least 8 weeks of in-person sessions, each at least an hour, and/or WRAP Facilitator Certification with 6 or more people helped develop their WRAP; Forensic: peer work with persons on probation or parole in the previous 24 months including at least eight 1-hour sessions, plus 4+ Forensic CEs or instructing the Forensic training.

The application, flyer and endorsements documents were reissued in January 2024; the research could not date what changed between versions.

Recover Wyoming has held the certification mandate since February 1, 2021, and the current paperwork still carries the grandparenting route — 36 contact hours for applicants eligible for the grandparenting period — without stating who qualifies or when that window closes.

No dated Wyoming rule change appears in the sources read, so treat the January 2024 paperwork as the current word.