Mental Health News Education, Inc. (MHNE), publisher of Behavioral Health News is pleased to announce that Jonathan P. Edwards, a MHNE Board Member since 2012, received his Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Social Welfare from the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center this fall.
Jonathan Edwards
Dr. Edwards’s research examines multiple factors associated with overall and multidimensional aspects of job satisfaction among peer support staff working within various mental health treatment and recovery-oriented service settings. Given the exponential growth of the peer support workforce nationally, and burgeoning interest within organizations to hire peer support staff or increase their peer support workforce, Dr. Edwards states, “While the immediate goal is to publish the results of my research, I want to be intentional about disseminating these findings within peer support workforce communities of practice, and recommending additional implementation strategies to organizations as they strive to further integrate the lived-experience perspectives of peer support staff within their workforce.”
Dr. Edwards is a program consultant for NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Bureau of Alcohol and Drug Use Prevention, Care, and Treatment, an adjunct instructor at Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College, a licensed clinical social worker, a fellow of the SAMHSA-funded Council on Social Work Education’s Minority Fellowship Program, a member of the Academy of Certified Social Workers, and brings more than 20 years of experience facilitating individual and system-level change through programming and planning, supervision, training, direct practice and utilization of lived experience. Dr. Edwards also serves on the boards of New York Peer Specialist Certification and National Association of Peer Supporters (N.A.P.S.).
MHNE Board Chair Debra Pantin, MSW, MS Health Care Management, President and CEO of Outreach, stated, “Jonathan has been a valuable member of our Board and we all want to congratulate him on his Doctorate and wish him great success in his career.”
