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!

SOAR Leaders can use this infographic to illustrate how Peer Support Workers can assist at different intercepts in the SOAR process.

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.

Learn more about the impact of Unemployment Insurance and Economic Impact (Stimulus) Payments on SSI/SSDI benefits.

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.

The Medical Summary Report (MSR) is SOAR’s signature tool and key to a successful application. It provides a succinct, comprehensive summary of the applicant’s personal and treatment history and its impact on his or her life. It also clearly describes the factors affecting functioning and ability to work.

SSI/SSDI overpayments may cause undue hardship for beneficiaries who are experiencing or at-risk for homelessness. This article provides tips for avoiding overpayments and steps to follow in the overpayment appeal/waiver process.

This article provides example descriptions for the areas of mental functioning. The “effective” functional descriptions clearly link the symptoms of the applicant’s illness with their limitations.