A Second Chance to Serve: Reforming Virginia’s Peer Recovery Specialist Barriers

Virginia has made real investments in recovery. We fund treatment, support behavioral health services, and talk often about second chances. We encourage people to get stable, finish probation, rebuild their lives, pursue training, and become productive members of the community. But in one important area, our laws still send a mixed message.

Virginia’s barrier crime laws can prevent people with lived experience from serving as peer recovery specialists, even after they complete training, demonstrate rehabilitation, finish court supervision, become eligible for certification, and find an employer willing to hire them. That is not just a legal problem. It is a workforce problem, a public safety problem, and a recovery problem.

As someone committed to Virginia’s future, I believe this is the kind of issue leaders cannot ignore. We need laws that protect vulnerable people, but we also need laws that recognize rehabilitation when it is real, documented, and proven over time. This is also a workforce and limited-government issue. Virginia needs more qualified people in behavioral health and recovery work, and the government should not impose an automatic lifetime wall when public safety can be protected through documentation, supervision, employer judgment, and accountability.

Virginia’s barrier crime laws were created for a legitimate reason: to protect vulnerable people. I support that purpose. No serious reform should weaken background checks or place unsafe people in sensitive roles. But a law can have a good purpose and still need refinement. When government rules become so rigid that they block trained, certified, rehabilitated people from adult peer recovery work, even when an employer is willing to complete a documented safety review, the law is no longer just protecting the public. It may also be preventing recovery workers from helping protect the public.

Peer recovery is not ordinary work. A peer recovery specialist is someone who helps others through the power of lived experience, stability, accountability, and hope. Virginia law itself recognizes peer recovery specialists in its behavioral health statutes. The law defines a peer recovery specialist as a person who has completed a peer recovery specialist training course approved by the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services. Virginia also requires peer recovery specialists to meet training, ethics, and certification-related requirements.

This is important because the purpose of peer recovery is to allow people who have walked through addiction, mental illness, crisis, incarceration, shame, relapse, recovery, and restoration to help others walk through it too. A person who has survived the system, completed supervision, stayed stable, and rebuilt his life may have insight that cannot be taught in a classroom. Lived experience does not replace training, ethics, supervision, or accountability. But it can make the training come alive.

When someone is in crisis, they may not immediately trust a professional system. They may not believe change is possible. They may not believe that recovery can actually happen for them. But when they meet someone who can say, “I know what it is like to fall, and I know what it takes to get back up,” something different can happen. Hope becomes more than a slogan. It becomes visible.

That is why I believe Virginia needs to look carefully at how barrier crime laws affect peer recovery work.

The problem is that Virginia’s background check laws are still too blunt. Most people hear the phrase “barrier crime” and assume it simply means a person committed a serious offense and can never work in a helping profession. But the issue is more complicated than that. In Virginia, “barrier crime” is a legal category. Once a conviction falls into that category, it can automatically block a person from certain jobs, even years later, even after the person has completed probation or supervision, even after the person has become stable, and even when an employer believes the person could serve well.

The master definition of a barrier crime is found in Code of Virginia § 19.2–392.02. That law lists the types of convictions that can create barriers. Other Virginia laws then borrow that definition and apply it to specific employment settings. In plain English, § 19.2–392.02 is the main list, and other statutes use that list to decide who can and cannot work in certain care-related jobs.

For adult substance abuse and mental health services, three laws are especially important. Section 37.2–416.1 applies to DBHDS-licensed private providers. DBHDS stands for the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services. These are private organizations licensed by the state to provide behavioral health services. Section 37.2–506.1 applies to Community Services Boards, often called CSBs. These are local public agencies that provide mental health, substance abuse, and developmental disability services across Virginia. Section 37.2–314 applies to DBHDS and state facility employment, which means jobs directly connected to the state behavioral health system.

These laws require background checks for direct care positions. A direct care position is not just any job. It usually means a position where the person has direct responsibility for the treatment, safety, support, or well-being of people receiving services. Since peer recovery specialists work directly with people in recovery, these laws can affect whether someone with a barrier crime history can be hired.

The concern is not that Virginia requires background checks. Background checks are reasonable. Vulnerable people deserve protection. Employers need to know who they are hiring. The concern is that the current system can treat a past conviction as an automatic barrier instead of asking a more complete question: Has this person changed? Has this person completed supervision? Has this person received training? Has this person become certified or certification-eligible? Has this person demonstrated stability? Does the employer believe this person is safe, prepared, and qualified to serve?

Virginia has already taken some positive steps. In 2023, HB1525 created a peer recovery specialist screening exception for certain barrier crime histories. In 2025, HB1877 refined the screening eligibility rules by clarifying that a peer recovery specialist must have completed jail or prison time, have no pending charges, not be under probation or parole supervision, and have been free from probation or parole for at least five years. It also removed the separate fines, restitution, and court-cost payment requirement for peer recovery specialists seeking screening consideration.

I recognize those steps, and I encourage legislators to build on them. They show that Virginia has already accepted an important principle: not every past conviction should automatically block every person forever. But the existing exceptions remain limited. They do not create the clear, confident, statewide pathway that Virginia needs for trained and qualified peer recovery specialists with lived experience.

The problem is not only what the law says on paper. The problem is also how the law operates in real life. Only certain convictions are realistically eligible for screening, and providers may hesitate because of liability concerns, uncertainty, or lack of standardized guidance. The result is that some people who are trained, stable, certified or certification-eligible, and wanted by an employer can still remain locked out of adult peer recovery work.

At the same time, Virginia continues to face serious behavioral health and addiction challenges. We need more people who can help others stabilize before crisis becomes crime, before relapse becomes destruction, before isolation becomes hopelessness, and before another family is left wondering what could have been done sooner. Peer recovery specialists are not a replacement for clinicians, counselors, doctors, law enforcement, or families. But they are an important part of the recovery workforce, especially because they can reach people who may not yet trust traditional systems.

This reform is not about removing safeguards. It is about replacing automatic exclusion with individualized review.

A responsible reform would keep background checks. It would keep training. It would keep certification. It would keep employer screening. It would keep ethical standards. It would keep protections for vulnerable people. It would also create a clear, adult-services pathway for people who have done the hard work of rehabilitation.

If a private provider or Community Services Board believes a trained and rehabilitated adult is fit to serve in a peer recovery role, the law should allow a careful review process instead of imposing an automatic lifetime wall. Government should set safety standards. But it should not erase employer judgment when public safety can be protected through documentation, supervision, and accountability.

I encourage Virginia legislators to amend the law so that a person with a barrier crime history can be considered for adult peer recovery specialist work when several conditions are met. The person has completed a DBHDS-approved peer recovery specialist training program. The person meets certification requirements or is certification-eligible. The person has completed incarceration, probation, parole, or court supervision. The person has demonstrated stability and rehabilitation. The employer wants to hire the person. The employer completes a written individualized risk assessment. The employer determines that the person is not a risk to individuals receiving services.

That is a careful process. That is not a free pass.

There is a major difference between ignoring a criminal record and evaluating a whole life. Public safety does not require Virginia to pretend the past never happened. But justice requires us to recognize when a person has changed, stayed accountable, and become equipped to help others avoid the same road.

Peer recovery is built on lived experience. A person who has walked through addiction, mental illness, incarceration, probation, reentry, treatment, shame, accountability, and restoration may be uniquely equipped to help someone else avoid relapse, return to treatment, stay connected, and rebuild a life. The law should not ignore a person’s past, but it also cannot ignore a person’s recovery.

There are people in Virginia who have completed training, rebuilt their lives, found purpose, and want to serve. There are employers who can see their value. There are communities that need their voice. There are people in crisis who might listen to them in a way they would not listen to anyone else. If our laws block those people automatically, we are not only limiting their future. We are also limiting the tools available to help others recover.

As part of Anchor 250’s criminal justice reform pillar, I am calling on Virginia to lead with a model that is serious, conservative, compassionate, and practical. We do not need to open every door without standards. We also cannot permanently lock every door when someone has completed the sentence, completed supervision, completed training, earned trust, and found a lawful opportunity to serve.

The next step is legislative. I encourage a Delegate or Senator to request a bill draft from the Virginia Division of Legislative Services. That bill needs to amend § 37.2–416.1, § 37.2–506.1, and § 37.2–314 to create a clearer peer recovery specialist pathway for adult behavioral health services. It also needs to make sure the employment pathway and registration pathway work together, so a person is not told by one part of the system that recovery is possible while another part of the system shuts the door.

This is the argument I want legislators to hear: Virginia does not have to choose between public safety and redemption. We can have both.

A person who is still unstable does not belong in a sensitive recovery role. A person who is unsafe does not belong in a position of responsibility with vulnerable adults. A person who has not completed training or ethical requirements is not ready to serve as a qualified peer recovery specialist. But when someone has come through the system, taken responsibility, completed the requirements, rebuilt his life, and found an employer willing to document that he is fit to serve, the law should not automatically stand in the way.

This reform cannot depend on good intentions alone. It must depend on proof: completed supervision, documented rehabilitation, training, certification eligibility, employer review, adult-service limitations, and a written finding that the person is not a risk to individuals receiving services.

Many serious people do exist. They have gifts, talents, lessons, and hard-earned wisdom that can make our communities safer. They have completed the process. They have pursued training. They have sought certification. They have earned employer support. They are willing to submit themselves to review. Virginia should not waste that kind of hard-earned experience when it can be used responsibly to help others.

Fixing the barrier crime laws for peer recovery specialists would not erase accountability. It would honor accountability by recognizing what rehabilitation is supposed to produce: restored citizens, safer communities, stronger families, and more people equipped to help others heal.

This is the kind of justice reform I encourage Virginia to lead.