From Lived Experience to the Policy Table: Reimagining Child Welfare Through Peer Recovery Specialists

Parental substance use is a central driver of child welfare system involvement in the United States, yet child welfare policy often operates in tension with recovery-oriented approaches to substance use. This commentary argues that integrating lived experience into child welfare policymaking is both an ethical imperative and a pragmatic strategy for improving policy alignment, implementation, and outcomes. Drawing on the growing role of peer recovery specialists working with child welfare-involved parents, this paper examines how lived experience functions as policy-relevant knowledge that surfaces conflicts between externally motivated compliance frameworks and internally motivated recovery processes. The commentary concludes by outlining policy levers to institutionalize lived experience at the policy table, preserving recovery-oriented values and promoting family stability.