Joanne Peterson is the Founder and Executive Director of Learn to Cope (LTC), a non-profit, peer-led support network established in 2004. Ms. Peterson’s journey started when she was a young girl, as her siblings experienced issues with mental illness and addiction. Years later, when Ms. Peterson discovered that her own son’s experimentation with prescription drugs had led to an opioid addiction, she was motivated and empowered to use her voice to bring about change. Today, her son is in long term recovery. She designed LTC to offer families the support, education, resources, and hope that her family would have benefited from.

Funded by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (MADPH), Learn to Cope has grown to have a full staff who collaborate with communities across the state, spreading messages of prevention, education, awareness, and advocacy. Moreover, LTC has 25 chapters throughout Massachusetts, a chapter in Florida, and a private, online forum that supports over 11,000 members. In each of these branches of LTC, families receive unique support and education from professionals and peers.

Through advocacy and awareness, Ms. Peterson collaborated with MADPH to become the first parent network in the country to provide the overdose reversal antidote nasal naloxone. Today, 91 of the 243 LTC facilitators are trained and certified to provide overdose education and nasal naloxone kits at each Massachusetts chapter. This life saving education and medication that LTC members receive has successfully reversed over 150 opioid overdoses since December 2011.

Currently, Ms. Peterson sits on the Massachusetts Health and Human Services Emergency Department working group along with the Governor’s Special Commission to investigate and study licensed addiction treatment centers for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. She is a board member of RIZE Massachusetts, a member of the Attorney General’s Interagency Task Force on Newborns with Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome, and a part of the Family Advisory Council for the Purdue Pharma Lawsuits. She serves on the Advisory Boards of the National Child and Traumatic Stress Network as well as Harvard University’s Recovery Research Institute.

https://learn2cope.org/

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