Peer Support Leadership: A Conversation with Randy Morrison
May 2025
Casey Coddaire (CCSME): Thanks for joining me, Randy. To start, could you talk a bit about where you began your work in peer support?
Randy Morrison: I had some leadership experience before MaineHealth, but it was in a different field. I came into peer support from direct service—working on the ground, delivering peer support programs. When I stepped into a leadership role at MaineHealth, the board had committed to having a peer support leader with lived experience to guide them through a growth and integration process. But there weren’t many peer support supervisors in the state. I only knew of one, and they weren’t really a collaborator—more of a competitor, given the scarcity of resources. At the time, any integration of peer support that was happening was just replicating the clinical model. There weren’t many resources or communities to turn to. No documents on how to integrate peer support, run team meetings, provide supervision, structure documentation, and more. So I had to figure it out through trial and error—learning from mistakes, talking to the state, and collaborating with trainers and others—like my own supervisor, who was great—who were open to conversation.
Casey: That sounds like a huge learning curve. How did that experience shape the work you do now?
Randy: It was foundational. The program at MaineHealth grew from three people to 65 over seven years, and from $100,000 in grants to $1.5 million. That incremental growth gave me the chance to learn and adapt alongside the program. I saw what it was like to run both small and large programs, and how to encourage growth. I learned how to support new leaders as we brought on supervisors and managers, and in turn see what they were coming up against and what kind of resources they needed. One big lesson was around budgeting. I held onto a lot of that work because it was complicated and I felt like it was getting in the way of my team building relationships and supporting staff, but I realized I was also taking away opportunities for others to learn, even with good intentions. That taught me a lot about leadership and delegation. Eventually, other organizations started asking how we were doing things—documentation, supervision, integration. That led to a thought process of getting this on paper and sharing information on a broader scale – first, creating manuals and, later, the Peer Leadership Series. I started thinking about resourcing peer supporters who want to step into leadership positions, and I realized I would need to move on from my position there in order to do that, to really dedicate myself to sharing the experiences and learnings and creating spaces for folks to strategize and navigate that process together. Partnering with CCSME was a big next step in terms of focusing on the topics and interests that could set up the next generation of leaders to continue this conversation.
Casey: I’m hearing a strong theme of collaboration. How do you see that shaping the future of peer support?
Randy: Collaboration is essential. It’s rooted in intentional peer support and recovery coaching. We’re part of a larger movement to improve care and center the voices of those using services. Some organizations are even training patients to lead their own care team meetings—that’s powerful. In Maine, we still have a long way to go. Sometimes patients aren’t even in the room, they’re just a number on a list. And of course everyone is doing the best they can, no shame. But I believe collaboration leads to broader change and better care for the whole community. We need to let go of the scarcity mindset and focus on quality and fidelity to the peer support model. That’s something I try to emphasize in training—building networks, strategic partnerships, and resilience. I want people to learn early when they’re first introduced to peer support, to find their people and build their networks to have some resiliency against some of these pressures to close in and close off from collaboration.
Casey: What kinds of conversations or feedback helped shape the topics in the Peer Leadership Series?
Randy: A lot came from integrating peer support into behavioral health homes. Providers had a lot of questions and needed clarity—on documentation, supervision, team roles. That led to the first training on integrating peer support into multidisciplinary teams. It was important to teach that full integration doesn’t mean we’re part of every clinical conversation, but we still need to frame a structure. We also reaffirmed with the state and SAMHSA that every peer supporter should have a peer support supervisor, and that led to conversations—and eventually a training—about what good peer support supervision looks like. We also developed training on team culture and strategic partnerships. Internally, we talked a lot about what kind of culture we wanted—how to navigate harm, conflict, and values in alignment with our model. I didn’t want to be creating teams where we’re just making things harder for each other. Given the landscape especially now, I wanted people to feel safe, seen, and supported. And in terms of the people we’re serving, we’re not serving anything if we’re not serving that safety first. There was also interest in grant writing and program management—things like org charts, mission statements, performance measures. Many new leaders didn’t have that background, so we created a fundamentals training as well as one-on-one technical assistance to fill those gaps and ensure everyone felt supported on their own leadership journey.
Casey: And where do you see peer support going in the future?
Randy: I hope we continue to bridge gaps between different models—recovery coaching, intentional peer support—and see them as complementary. I’m especially focused on leadership and creating spaces for this conversation as it continues to evolve. We need strong, collaborative leaders from within the peer support community to keep advancing the work. Sometimes we run into these peer support centers trying to be all things to all people, and while this is done with the best intentions I would love to see a shift to a collaborative, strategic partnership framework to identify gaps and meet community needs together. Mutual resourcing will be key. I’d love to see continuing legislative advocacy, especially around things like peer respites. I want to continue to think about how we can come together as a coalition across sectors and silos to address the needs this community has identified. The recovery community has done a great job on that front, and I think we can learn from them. Ultimately, I want the Peer Leadership Series to keep evolving. I don’t want it to get stale. I want to keep asking the community what they need and adapt accordingly. It all comes back to making leadership sustainable. That keeps it relevant—and keeps me engaged, too.