61088 Federal Register / Vol. 79, No. 196 / Thursday, October 9, 2014 / Notices 

(Catalogue of Federal Domestic Assistance 

Program Nos. 93.306, Comparative Medicine; 

93.333, Clinical Research, 93.306, 93.333, 

93.337, 93.393–93.396, 93.837–93.844, 

93.846–93.878, 93.892, 93.893, National 

Institutes of Health, HHS) 

Dated: October 3, 2014. 

Carolyn Baum, 

Program Analyst, Office of Federal Advisory 

Committee Policy. 

[FR Doc. 2014–24059 Filed 10–8–14; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 4140–01–P 

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND 

HUMAN SERVICES 

Substance Abuse and Mental Health 

Services Administration 

Agency Information Collection 

Activities: Submission for OMB 

Review; Comment Request 

Periodically, SAMHSA will publish a 

summary of information collection 

requests under the Office of 

Management and Budget (OMB) review, 

in compliance with the Paperwork 

Reduction Act (44 U.S.C. Chapter 35). 

To request a copy of these documents, 

call the SAMHSA Reports Clearance 

Officer on (240) 276–1243. 

Project: Identifying Core Competencies 

of Peer Workers in Behavioral Health 

Services (Behavioral Health Services) 

—NEW 

SAMHSA’s Center for Mental Health 

Services’ project, Bringing Recovery 

Supports to Scale Technical Assistance 

Center Strategy (BRSS TACS) is 

requesting OMB’s approval for a data 

collection project entitled, ‘‘Identifying 

Core Competencies of Peer Workers in 

Behavioral Health Services.’’ The BRSS 

TACS team intends to use two 

instruments to collect original data to 

inform the ongoing development of core 

competencies for peer workers in 

behavioral health care services. These 

instruments are: 

• Core Competencies Survey with Peer 

Workers 

• Telephone Interview of Peer Workers 

The primary purpose for this 

information is to appraise the 

importance of specific competencies to 

the work of peer workers who are 

currently employed in behavioral health 

settings. The Core Competencies Survey 

will collect peer workers’ ratings of the 

importance of different competencies to 

their work. The Telephone Interview of 

Peer Workers will collect peer workers’ 

experiences with and opinions about 

the competencies on the survey. They 

will also be asked how they might use 

the competencies in their work. The 

Core Competencies Survey and the 

Telephone Interview are seen as critical 

to the development of core 

competencies for peer workers because 

they integrate the perspective of people 

who are currently employed as peer 

workers in the behavioral health care 

workforce and have been judged as 

competent by another colleague. 

While peer workers have become 

critical components of recovery-oriented 

systems, paid peer positions and roles 

are relatively new additions to the 

behavioral health workforce. There are 

basic questions about how to define 

these roles. There are additional 

uncertainties about how best to prepare 

people in recovery for the role of peer 

worker and how to supervise and 

evaluate the job performance of peer 

workers. Developing a set of core 

competencies is an important step in 

responding to these questions and may 

be a valuable activity in expanding peer 

roles in behavioral health. 

Although training programs for peer 

workers in the behavioral health system 

have existed for over a decade, there 

have been no attempts to standardize 

the content or the models of training. To 

date, no national consensus defines 

standards for peer worker training 

programs. Training programs differ in 

length, ranging from 30 to 105 hours of 

face-to-face training and vary widely in 

the knowledge and skills that they teach 

trainees (SAMHSA, 2012). 

The Core Competency Project will 

describe the foundational knowledge, 

skills, and attitudes required by peer 

workers to perform their roles in a wide 

variety of behavioral health programs 

and services. Peer-provided recovery 

support services typically involve 

providing social support, linking people 

to community resources, assisting with 

decision-making activities, and a host of 

educational and recreational activities 

(CSAT, 2009; SAMHSA, 2012). In 

addition, peer workers facilitate 

educational and support groups and 

advocate for service improvements. 

SAMHSA defines peer-provided 

recovery support as, ‘‘a set of nonclinical, peer-based activities that 

engage, educate and support an 

individual successfully to make life 

changes necessary to recover from 

disabling mental illness and/or 

substance use disorder conditions’’ 

(CSAT, 2009). While some peer workers 

are performing advanced or specialized 

competencies within the behavioral 

health field, the core competencies 

described will include the foundational 

competencies required by all peer 

workers working in a variety of 

environments and with a diversity of 

people. 

It is critical to communicate to the 

behavioral health field and behavioral 

health authorities about the 

foundational knowledge, skills, and 

attitudes needed by peer workers. 

Because of the anticipated continued 

demand for peers in the behavioral 

health workforce, SAMHSA has 

prioritized the development of peerdelivered recovery support services 

across mental health and substance use 

disorder services. In an effort to deliver 

services of uniformly high quality, the 

core competencies of peer workers will 

be described so that states and other 

credentialing bodies will be able to 

establish uniform standards for peer 

workers. 

In addition, clear descriptions of core 

competencies will assist behavioral 

health authorities with their strategic 

workforce planning efforts. The 

description of core competencies will 

inform services and peer workforce 

training programs of the basic 

requirements needed by peer workers in 

behavioral health services. The 

competencies will provide guidance to 

behavioral health programs when 

writing job descriptions and 

performances evaluations. In many 

communities, job descriptions lack 

uniformity and specificity and do not 

reflect accurately the focus of peerprovided recovery support services. 

The results of these surveys will 

contribute to the creation of competency 

descriptions that will provide guidance 

to organizations, programs, states, and 

regions to strengthen their peer 

workforce development efforts. These 

core competencies will inform training 

programs and state certification entities 

about the essential skills, knowledge, 

and attitudes needed by peer workers in 

a range of roles in behavioral health 

services. Currently, 33 states offer 

certification for their peer workers and 

a growing number of states use 

Medicaid funds to reimburse for peer 

support services (Daniels et al., 2014). 

Despite the growth of the behavioral 

health peer workforce; there are 

inconsistencies in the requirements for 

these certifications across different 

states. 

For behavioral health organizations 

and programs, core competencies will 

provide guidance for job descriptions 

for peer workers and improve the 

recruitment of potential workers by 

providing fair and unbiased criteria for 

hiring and making sure everyone is 

assessed against the same framework. 

Core competency descriptions have the 

potential to strengthen the workforce 

through improved training and 

preparation of peer workers. Behavioral 

health programs and organizations can 

mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with NOTICES

Federal Register / Vol. 79, No. 196 / Thursday, October 9, 2014 / Notices 61089 

use the core competencies to improve 

performance evaluations by providing a 

framework to discuss and assess 

performance. 

Core competencies have the potential 

to contribute to a ‘‘culture of 

competence’’ in which peer workers 

could use the competencies to engage in 

accurate self-assessment and seek out 

experiences to improve their 

competencies. For peer workers, core 

competencies could help to clarify what 

is expected in their role and will assist 

them in assessing their own strengths 

and limitations as a provider of peer 

support. 

At this time, SAMHSA is requesting 

approval to use these two forms. The 

forms are described here: 

1. Peer Worker Telephone Interviews: 

Peer worker interviews will be 

conducted by telephone with 20 peer 

workers to gather descriptive details 

about the interviewees’ use of the core 

competencies included in the 

quantitative surveys, their opinions 

about specific competencies, and their 

beliefs about the usefulness of 

articulating core competencies for their 

peer worker roles. Qualitative 

interviews may also produce examples 

of how peer workers use specific 

competencies. 

The information gathered by the Core 

Competencies Survey and the Peer 

Worker Telephone Interview will help 

SAMHSA guide the behavioral health 

field with workforce development 

efforts related to peer workers. This 

information is crucial to providing 

technical assistance to states, behavioral 

health organizations, peer-run and 

recovery community organizations, and 

organizations and institutions that 

provide training to peer workers in 

behavioral health. 

2. Core Competencies Survey: The 

Core Competencies Survey was 

developed through an extensive process 

of literature reviews, synthesis of the 

competencies, expert panel review, and 

consensus-building activities. The Core 

Competencies Survey has 61 items and 

uses a 5-point Likert scale from 1- 

unimportant to 5-very important. The 

items on the survey are specific 

competencies that were developed by 

the BRSS TACS team, their partners, 

and experts in peer-provided services in 

behavioral health. Respondents to the 

Core Competencies Survey will also 

complete a section on demographic 

characteristics of the participant’s 

gender, age, race/ethnicity, geographic 

location, level of education, monthly 

income, length of time as a peer worker, 

current field of employment, and 

certification status. Demographic data 

will be used to describe the survey 

respondents. The response to the 

current field of employment questions 

will be used to categorize the 

respondent as working primarily in 

addiction services, mental health 

services, or services for people with cooccurring disorders, a variable that will 

be included in specific analyses of the 

data. 

The chart below summarizes the 

annualized burden for this project. 

Type of respondent Number of 

respondents 

Responses 

per 

respondent 

Total number 

of responses 

Hours per 

response 

Total annual 

burden 

hours 

Peer workers for interview ................................................... 20 1 20 1 20 

Peer workers for survey ....................................................... 100 1 100 1 100 

Total .............................................................................. 120 ........................ 120 ........................ 120 

Written comments and 

recommendations concerning the 

proposed information collection should 

be sent by November 10, 2014 to the 

SAMHSA Desk Officer at the Office of 

Information and Regulatory Affairs, 

OMB. To ensure timely receipt of 

comments, and to avoid potential delays 

in OMB’s receipt and processing of mail 

sent through the U.S. Postal Service, 

commenters are encouraged to submit 

their comments to OMB via email to: 

OIRA_Submission@omb.eop.gov. 

Although commenters are encouraged to 

send their comments via email, 

commenters may also fax their 

comments to: 202–395–7285. 

Commenters may also mail them to: 

Office of Management and Budget, 

Office of Information and Regulatory 

Affairs, New Executive Office Building, 

Room 10102, Washington, DC 20503. 

Summer King, 

Statistician. 

[FR Doc. 2014–24111 Filed 10–8–14; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 4162–20–P 

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND 

SECURITY 

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration 

Services 

[OMB Control Number 1615–0106] 

Agency Information Collection 

Activities: Petition for Qualifying 

Family Member of a U–1 

Nonimmigrant, Form I–929; Extension, 

Without Change, of a Currently 

Approved Collection 

ACTION: 60-day notice. 

SUMMARY: The Department of Homeland 

Security (DHS), U.S. Citizenship and 

Immigration Services (USCIS) invites 

the general public and other Federal 

agencies to comment upon this 

proposed extension of a currently 

approved collection of information. In 

accordance with the Paperwork 

Reduction Act (PRA) of 1995, the 

information collection notice is 

published in the Federal Register to 

obtain comments regarding the nature of 

the information collection, the 

categories of respondents, the estimated 

burden (i.e. the time, effort, and 

resources used by the respondents to 

respond), the estimated cost to the 

respondent, and the actual information 

collection instruments. 

DATES: Comments are encouraged and 

will be accepted for 60 days until 

December 8, 2014. 

ADDRESSES: All submissions received 

must include the OMB Control Number 

1615–0106 in the subject box, the 

agency name and Docket ID USCIS– 

2009–0010. To avoid duplicate 

submissions, please use only one of the 

following methods to submit comments: 

(1) Online. Submit comments via the 

Federal eRulemaking Portal Web site at 

www.regulations.gov under e-Docket ID 

number USCIS–2009–0010; 

(2) Email. Submit comments to 

USCISFRComment@uscis.dhs.gov; 

(3) Mail. Submit written comments to 

DHS, USCIS, Office of Policy and 

Strategy, Chief, Regulatory Coordination 

Division, 20 Massachusetts Avenue 

NW., Washington, DC 20529–2140. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

Comments 

Regardless of the method used for 

submitting comments or material, all 

submissions will be posted, without 

change, to the Federal eRulemaking 

mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with NOTICES