Ballad Health's PEERhelp ProgramBallad Health's PEERhelp Program
Rural Roads- The RCORPodcast.
Ballad Health’s PEERhelp team talks about hiring peers with lived experience, working in jails, supporting re-entry and expanding naloxone access across rural Tennessee and Virginia. The conversation highlights hands-on, long-term support and personal success stories from people who’ve moved from incarceration into recovery and helping others.
38:05•2 Jul 2024
PEERhelp at Ballad Health: Hope Dealers in Rural Recovery
Episode Overview
- PEERhelp intentionally hires certified peer recovery specialists with lived experience from the same rural communities they serve.
- Ballad Health supports fair chance employment, opening roles to people with criminal records and backing them with peer support and training.
- The team runs jail-based groups and starts re-entry planning around 90 days before release, focusing on documents, housing, work and treatment access.
- Email-based jail contact, soft-skills education and close coordination with courts and probation help people build and keep stable lives.
- Hands-on, long-term support has led to stories of regaining custody, starting careers in peer work and launching grassroots naloxone distribution.
“We’re hope dealers.”
How do individuals turn their lives around after addiction? Rural Roads – The RCORPodcast heads to northeast Tennessee and southwest Virginia to highlight Ballad Health’s PEERhelp programme, a hospital-based team built around people with lived experience of substance use and justice involvement.
Host Tim Rabel hands the mic to guest hosts Robert Childs and Melody Joyner, who chat with Jennifer Jones, Eric Barker, Jill Howell and Bethany Patrick about what happens when those most affected by substance use are the ones offering support. The PEERhelp workforce is intentionally staffed with certified peer recovery specialists from the same rural communities they serve – people who grew up with, went to church with, or even once shared a jail pod with their participants.
As Jennifer explains, their approach is simple: “We really are very much, we walk alongside the individual.” You’ll hear how Ballad Health relaxed hiring standards to support “fair chance employment”, giving roles to people with criminal records and backing them with peer support, soft-skills training and practical help like transport, clothing and housing referrals.
Eric shares how he first heard about PEERhelp while incarcerated, then later got hired and now goes back into the same jail to run groups and offer hope. Jill describes watching “walls literally fall down” when participants realise she’s also in long-term recovery. The conversation also covers PEERhelp’s jail-based education groups, structured re-entry planning that starts around 90 days before release, and creative use of jail email to reach people where in-person access is limited.
Bethany and Jennifer talk through a packed regional naloxone stakeholders meeting, where data modelling, faith leaders, directly impacted community members and handmade naloxone carry-bags all came together around one aim: “We’re hope dealers.” If you care about rural communities, second chances, and practical, hands-on support that doesn’t stop at a referral, this episode offers a grounded look at what that actually looks like day to day. Whose corner could you stand in with this kind of commitment?
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