The Peer Support Specialist uses their unique set of lived experiences and recovery, in combination with comprehensive skills-training, including continuing education, to support people with similar lived experience. Peer Specialists actively center peer support principles and skills in their work, while working in a clearly defined role and collaborating in a complementary fashion as part of an agency's team support structure. They demonstrate the ability to center choice and self-determination, as well as the recognition and validation of many pathways to self-defined recovery. Many find that the freedom to define their struggles and victories on their own terms and makes meaning of their own experiences as they see fit as being instrumental in fostering a life worth living. The Peer Support recognizes the people they support as the ultimate experts in what will work best for themselves. The Peer Support trusts and respects their peers' decisions and advocates alongside them in order to ensure their needs are met in a person-centered, self-determined manner.