Peer support training and organisational standards — for candidates and sponsoring organisations across:
If You're Seeking Support
Before you sit down with a peer supporter, ask one question
If you or someone you love is seeking support from a peer supporter, sponsor or recovery mentor — from any church, treatment centre or ministry, anywhere in the UK, Ireland, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Kenya, Nigeria or South Africa — ask them one thing: "Are you CFR Recovery to Service registered, and is it current?"
It takes seconds to check. Scan their QR code or enter their reference number and you'll get back their status immediately — no account needed, and it's free forever.
Note: this register can't be searched or browsed by name — only by the exact registration number or QR code.
The Problem
The gap nobody names
There's a distance between I got clean and I can safely sit with someone who hasn't, and it's wider than most people expect.
People in recovery make exceptional helpers. They recognise what a clinician can't — same words, same lies, same chair. That's rare and it's real.
They're also, at certain points, among the most at-risk helpers there are. The failures are well documented and specific:
- Over-involvement that starts as dedication
- Boundaries that move one small step at a time
- Taking someone else's relapse as personal failure
- Working harder on their recovery than they are
- Burning out, withdrawing, or going back out
None of these announce themselves. From the outside, most of them look like unusual commitment. That's exactly why they need a second pair of eyes — and why nobody can assess their own readiness for this alone.
What It Is
Thirty-six weeks. Four parts. Four gateways.
Not a course you read. A course you're assessed on.
Weeks 1–8
Part One — The Self Before the Service
Why you want this. Your own recovery. The rescue instinct. Your story. Boundaries. Scope. Supervision.
Weeks 9–17
Part Two — Knowledge and Limits
What addiction is. What treatment does. Where your competence ends, and what you do when you reach it.
Weeks 18–26
Part Three — Safeguarding and Crisis
Disclosure. Risk. Suicide. Children. What you do on the same day, in the right order.
Weeks 27–36
Part Four — Practice
Observed sessions. Real supervision of real work. The final review.
A gateway must be signed before the next part is released. Someone who hasn't done the work stops there. That's not a flaw in the design — it's the entire safeguarding purpose.
How It's Earned
Four strands, all assessed
Reflective journal
36 dated entries. Your supervisor reads a selection, including all four gateway entries.
Knowledge checks
8 written papers, marked against a published scheme. 70% to pass.
Supervision
9 recorded sessions. Monthly — not banked, not caught up at the end.
Observed practice
3 sessions, from Part Four only, with the supported person's consent.
Nothing is self-scored. Nothing is ticked off by the person doing it.
The Honest Part
We'd rather you didn't start than start too early
Most people who stall in this course aren't unsuitable. They're early.
Two years of continuous recovery is the minimum, and many sponsoring organisations will want longer. There's an application, a reference taken independently of you, and a live interview.
If the thought of being supervised, marked, and possibly told you're not ready feels intolerable, that's worth noticing now rather than at week twenty.
The accountability isn't an obstacle in front of the course. It is the course.
Sponsorship
You'll need someone to stand behind you
The material is free to read. The certificate has to be sponsored.
A church, treatment centre or ministry appoints your supervisor, holds your records, and signs your certificate at the end — if you earn it.
They're not being asked for money. They're being asked for roughly twenty hours across nine months, and for a judgement at the end.
No organisation to ask yet? A sponsoring organisation has to be in place before an application can be considered — we don't supply or match supervisors ourselves. See the FAQ for the ways candidates without one usually find a sponsor.
What The Certificate Says
And what it doesn't
It claims: you completed 36 weeks of structured training, produced assessed written work, were supervised monthly for nine months, were observed in practice, and were judged safe to offer peer support within defined limits.
It does not claim: that you are a counsellor, therapist or clinician. It isn't an accredited qualification and confers no professional registration.
We state this on the certificate itself. Anyone using this course has to reproduce it accurately.
What it is: the accepted minimum for anyone working as a peer supporter in addiction services — not a nice-to-have, but what should already be expected of you before you sit alone with someone in addiction or their family.
Why the sample card matters to you
It's yours to carry, not ours to hold. A registration number and a QR code — that's it. No public profile, no browsable list, no way for anyone to find you by searching. You can opt out of verification lookups entirely at any point and still keep the certificate itself.
Sample card shown — not a real registration
For Organisations
What you're being asked to carry
Open to any church, treatment centre or recovery ministry — in the UK, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, or anywhere else.
The Recovery to Service card is the accepted minimum for anyone working as a peer supporter in addiction services — it's what should already be expected of every volunteer or staff member before they sit alone with someone in addiction or their family, not an optional extra.
Appoint a supervisor. Run a short admissions process. Hold the records. Sign four gateways. Issue the certificate, or decline to.
No fee, no licence, no affiliation. You don't teach — the course does that.
Everything comes with it: admissions pack, assessment framework, supervision record sheets, observation reports, gateway decision sheets, marking schemes, and a fit-to-practise procedure covering pause and withdrawal.
At the end, someone from your organisation signs a statement that this person is safe to sit alone with a vulnerable adult in crisis. If you're not willing to be in a position to make that judgement, decline now. Declining is a perfectly good answer and far better than an unexamined yes.
Why this matters to you: scan the code or enter the number at our verify page and you get back status and expiry in seconds — before you ever put someone in a room alone with a vulnerable person. No account needed, and it's free forever.
For Registered Organisations
Show it on your website
Once registered, your organisation gets its own personalised badge — several styles to choose from — that links to a live page confirming your registration is current. Log into your organisation portal to get your version.
Start with Week One
Free, like everything else here. Read it before you ask anyone to sponsor you.
If it makes you more certain, apply. If it makes you hesitate, that's information worth having — and the course has already done something useful.
Safeguarding, written in
Built for the questions your board, insurer and denomination will ask.
Churches and centres in the UK, USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand use CFR because it gives them a written answer to the three things every safeguarding review asks.
Your organisation sees names, join dates and anonymous participation totals. Nobody in your organisation can read a member's chats, journal, check-ins or course answers — the system does not expose them. Written down, in plain English.
Read the plain-English privacy answerRecovery to Service peer supporters train for 36 weeks under a named supervisor who signs every gateway. Every graduate is on a public register that you — or a worried parent — can check in ten seconds.
Verify a peer supporterPeer support and Bible-study material, not clinical therapy — so no counselling licence is required to run it. Data handled to GDPR standards. Concern reporting built in. Seat records, invoices and supervisor sign-offs are all in your dashboard when a board or insurer asks.
See the full safeguarding pageWe're a ministry, not a law firm: local safeguarding and data rules still apply, and we'll gladly help you map CFR onto them.How CFR fits your safeguarding policy →
Why people stop looking once they find us
The only Christian recovery service built for all four people in the room: the addict, the family, the church and the rehab centre.
Most options make you choose: faith or structure, the addict or the family, a meeting or something that's there at 3am. We built the whole thing under one roof, with safeguarding written into it — so nobody has to settle for half an answer.
Three sequential courses (8 + 17 + 12 weeks), a private AI companion at 3am, daily check-ins. First course free, forever.
Start freeTheir own courses — spouses, parents, siblings, adult children and children from age 5. Not a footnote to the addict's programme.
Find your courseFull memberships for your people by invite code, a materials licence for the room, and a written answer to "who can see what".
See church optionsAftercare that survives discharge, plus Recovery to Service — a supervised, verifiable path from former resident to peer supporter.
See centre optionsWhat you'd be settling for anywhere else:
A Free Gift From Christian Family Recovery
"God, it's the middle of the night and I'm awake again. You know why. You've watched me lie here before." — Prayer One, For the Night You Can't Sleep