Peer Recovery Center of Excellence

The Peer Recovery Center of Excellence is a peer-led national center that provides training and technical assistance related to substance use disorder recovery. Housed at the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC), the center was authorized under Section 7152 of the SUPPORT Act for Patients and Communities and funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration (SAMHSA).

The Peer Recovery Center of Excellence is led by a steering committee of national peer recovery leaders from across the nation: Sharon Hesseltine (Chair), Haner Hernandez, Nell Hurley, Michael King, Laurie Johnson-Wade, and Johanna Dolan.

UMKC’s partners in the Peer Recovery Center of Excellence are University of Texas-Austin, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the National Council for Mental Wellbeing.

The Center’s strategies for training and technical assistance are organized into the following core areas of focus:

Clinical integration of peer support workers into non-traditional settings;
Building and strengthening capacity of Recovery Community Organizations;
Enhancing the professionalization of peers through workforce development;
Providing evidence-based and practice-based toolkits and resource information to diverse stakeholders

In addition, the Peer Recovery Center of Excellence is a resource to individuals, organizations, and systems working to advance the successful implementation of the peer support model of recovery in an array of settings.

Website: Peer Recovery CoE
Technical Assistance (TA) requests can be made via email.
SAMHSA Point of Contact: David Awadalla, david.awadalla@samhsa.hhs.gov
Director/PI: Adam Viera, aviera@umkc.edu
Senior Program Manager: Shannon Roberts, MPH, slroberts@umkc.edu
Project Manager: Cindy Christy, christyc@umkc.edu