Monthly Spotlight
Building Recovery-Ready Rural Communities
Describe your initiative.
My initiative, Building Recovery-Ready Rural Communities, is a long-term engaged research partnership designed to create sustainable recovery infrastructure in East Tennessee and beyond. It began with the Building Connections Across the Bridge grant, which funded a transformative site visit to Texas for our partner, Align9. This experience—including a master class with Robin Peyson of the Faces & Voices of Recovery Research Institute—was a pivotal learning moment that gave the Align9 team the direction and inspiration to move forward. To ensure this work continued, I integrated it into my graduate public health course on strategic management, where the Public Health Student Consulting Group (PHSCG) provides ongoing technical assistance.
What’s your why?
I believe that for recovery support to be effective, it must be grounded in best practices. My scholarship demonstrates that recovery organizations succeed when they operate with fidelity to the model. When Align9 approached me, they wanted to build Diamonds RCO not just as a program, but as an organization with the leadership and governance necessary to achieve national certification. This work ensures that rural communities have access to evidence-based peer support that truly transforms lives.
Important lesson learned for doing this work.
Engaged research is a long-term commitment that must endure beyond a single funding cycle. I have learned that students can be the engine for this continuity. By positioning them as the Public Health Student Consulting Group, we treat them as consultants rather than just students. They tackle the “quiet work” of organizational change—developing bylaws, tracking systems, and drafting roadmaps—which provides the essential scaffolding our partners need to thrive long after the initial grant money is gone.
Impact made on UT and the community.
This partnership has been ongoing for over three years, spanning three separate student cohorts. The impact is clear and measurable: Align9 successfully founded Diamonds RCO, establishing a vital resource for the 9th Judicial District. As a direct result of these cumulative student efforts, Diamonds RCO has built the necessary capacity to apply for ARCO certification in January 2026. For UT, this initiative transforms the classroom into a professional environment where students produce real-world deliverables that directly strengthen Tennessee’s behavioral health infrastructure. These collaborative efforts have expanded to other organizations, and I hope to produce a Roadmap for other communities that, in partnership with UTIA, can be disseminated across rural communities facing the current epidemic of substance use.