National Resource Center for Family Centered Practice

The NRCFCP's Peer Workforce Collaborative project was featured  in the Iowa Department of Public Health's (IDPH) April 2022 Newsletter. The Peer Workforce Collaborative is a five-year grant with the goal of recruiting, screening, and training Peer Support Specialists and Recovery Peer Coaches in the state of Iowa. To qualify for training through the IPWC, a Peer must have lived experience with serious mental illness and be living  in recovery or for Peer Recovery Coach training, a peer must have lived experience of a substance use disorder and be living  in recovery. Training as a Peer Support Specialist consists of five days of training, provided by IPWC, to peers who meet the training criteria. A six-hour Ethics for Peer Support Specialists is also provided as a separate training. The Recovery Peer Coach training is provided by Connecticut Community for Addiction Recovery (CCAR) and is a 1-week, 30-hour online training. All training provided by IPWC is free to Peers in Iowa through our grant. For more information about the Iowa Peer Workforce Collaborative, please visit : https://www.iowa peersupporttraining.org/.

NRCFCP staff Anne Abbott and Renee Ling presented at the 2022 Nutrition Incentive Hub National Convening on Wednesday January 19, 2022. Their presentation covered lessons learned from the NRCFCP's longstanding partnership with the Iowa Healthiest State Initiative's Double Up Food Bucks program. The presentation was a part of a panel discussion titled Demonstrating Impact: Getting the Most Out of Evaluation Efforts. Ms. Abbott is the Program Director for Public Health Evaluation at the NRCFCP and Ms. Ling is a Research Associate detailed to many of the center's evaluation and research projects.

The University of Iowa National Resource Center for Family Centered Practice (NRCFCP) at the School of Social Work, and the UI Department of Pediatrics Division of Child and Community Health, in partnership with Life Connections Peer Recovery Services of DeWitt, Iowa, have been awarded funding from the State of Iowa to support the Iowa Peer Workforce Collaborative—a project that will provide comprehensive training and coordination for the state’s Peer Support Specialists, Family Peer Support Specialists, and Recovery Peer Coaches and the organizations that employ them. The project aims to develop and support a skilled peer workforce to help address the mental health needs of Iowa residents, and to promote expanded employment opportunities for peers across the state.