Library & Tools

National Recovery Month is observed every September to educate the public about mental health and substance use disorders and to celebrate the gains accomplished by individuals in recovery. In celebration, the SAMHSA SOAR TA Center extends thanks and appreciation to the 250+ SOAR-trained case workers who identify as “peers.”

Read our Q&A with a SOAR case worker from New York who has an appeals success story!

On this webinar, held on January 25, 2022, panelists shared best practice examples on how they have incorporated their lived expertise into their SOAR work.

Highlighted below are some of the ways peers from around the country have incorporated their lived expertise into their SOAR work.

The Social Security Administration now offers a video option for Administrative Law Judge appeal hearings.

On this webinar, held on June 18, 2020, we introduced our updated SOAR Appeals Toolkit and guest speakers offered practice tips on effectively representing SOAR applicants with appeals.

This article explains how you can promote SOAR with your Social Security Administration (SSA) Office of Hearings Operations (OHO) office to help ease their backlog and workload issues, while at the same time, improving access to expedited decisions for SOAR applicants.

Here are examples of completed SSA and SOAR Forms using information from a fictitious SSI child applicant.

Here are examples of completed SSA and SOAR Forms using information from a fictitious SSI/SSDI applicant.

Once the Request for Hearing has been processed at OHO, both the representative and applicant will receive a notice indicating the case has been successfully transferred to the court’s Master Docket, where cases are screened. At this stage, representatives can request a Prehearing Case Review or an On-the-Record (OTR) review to avoid the need for a hearing. If the OHO office is not able to grant these requests, the applicant retains the right to a hearing. A request for an expedited hearing due to dire need can also be submitted.