REC Facilitators

Our dedicated team of facilitators are at the forefront of empowering individuals to embark on their transformative journey of recovery and personal growth.

Alan Meister

REC Facilitator

Alan Meister

MDiv., LADC1

REC Facilitator

Alan Meister MDiv., LADC1, has worked in the Substance Use field for more than twenty five years in various capacities in the United States and overseas in Russia.

Since 2015 he has run programs providing community based recovery supports (Recovery Coach, Recovery Support Navigator, etc) in a variety of settings (hospital, prisons, outpatient).

Currently he is the Director of the Connect2Recovery program at Riverside Community Care. Alan is a CCAR trained Recovery Coach Facilitator who has been training peers and peer supervisors through BSAS (and independently) since 2016. He also serves as the ministry lead for Celebrate Recovery at his home church in Hopkinton, MA.

Alan has a passion to help people in their recovery journey and to support those in the field to grow in their skills and abilities to help others.

Alex Fidalgo

C4 Innovations

REC Facilitator

Alex Fidalgo

REC Facilitator, C4 Innovations

Alexander Fidalgo is a New York born, Puerto Rican. He currently serves as a Senior Training Associate in the Opioid Prevention Grant for health Resources in Action, facilitating trainings on overdose prevention, stigma, and label, as well as developing training curriculums. Alex also serves as a Core Trainer for the BSAS developed peer workforce curriculums for the REC through C4 Innovations. In the many professional hats that Alex wears his focus has been as a recovery coach and facilitating coaching trainings in an effort to develop the peer recovery workforce in the state of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Colorado, Puerto Rico and Florida. His later work has been supporting translation of a recovery coach curriculum into Spanish to provide access to members of the Latinx communities.

Angela Dalessio

REC Facilitator

Angela Dalessio

REC Facilitator

Angela Dalessio is an accomplished Recovery Education Consultant and leader in peer recovery support. She has dedicated her career to creating social change by working to build recovery friendly communities. Angela opened one of the first state funded peer recovery support centers in 2008 and was successful in creating a recovery hub in the heart of a local community. In her 10 years as program director, she managed the day-to-day operations, trained staff, advocated for recovery supports within the larger community and assisted individuals suffering from substance use make a successful transition from the culture of addiction to the culture of recovery. In addition, she facilitated Domestic Violence Prevention and Driver Alcohol Education classes within her organization. She has over 20 years’ experience in substance use recovery and is a licensed counselor.
Angela holds an RCFP Designation with the Connecticut Community Addiction Recovery (CCAR) granting her permission to facilitate all there Recovery Education Courses. Through her unwavering compassion she has trained other like-minded professionals, individuals in long-term recovery and community allies to work as peer recovery professionals.

She has been recognized by the Massachusetts Association for Behavioral Health for her work in substance use recovery.

In 2011 she received the Moe Armstrong award for her excellence in peer leadership. Angela has presented nationally at SAMSHA’s ninth Innovation in Treatment and Recovery Systems Conference.

Daisy M Hernandez

C4 Innovations

REC Director of Peer Recovery Technical Assistance

Daisy M Hernandez

MSW, LCSW, MBA

REC Director of Peer Recovery Technical Assistance, C4 Innovations

Daisy M. Hernandez, MSW, LCSW, MBA, earned her Master of Social Work as a fellow of the Integrated Behavioral Health Fellowship from Westfield State University.

Daisy has dedicated her clinical social work career to community mental and behavioral health organizations within under-served communities. Her professional experience spans the entire spectrum of substance use disorder (prevention through recovery).

As a native of Puerto Rico, Daisy has leveraged her lived experience, bilingualism and education to support and advance racial justice and empower individuals who are over-represented in behavioral health and social services as a result of discrimination and prejudice as well as negative impacts of social determinants of health, including re-entry.

Jim Higgins

BSAS Contractor

REC Facilitator

Jim Higgins

REC Facilitator, BSAS Contractor

Jim Higgins is a person in long term recovery from alcoholism. He started his career in recovery support services in 2012 in Connecticut as Manager of CCAR’s Hartford Recovery Community Center and then as CCAR’s first Recovery Coach Program Manager. He also started facilitating Recovery Coach trainings for CCAR in 2015. He began his service in MA in 2019 supervising recovery coaches for a behavioral health provider in Springfield, MA. Since 2020, Jim has been doing work for BSAS in the many Peer Recovery Support Centers across the state; he has served as a Recovery Coach Trainer/Facilitator for BSAS and for Choice Recovery Coaching since 2021.

Jim freely shares his experiences from his own recovery story. He also uses his story to add perspective to discussion about diversity, equity and inclusion by sharing (1) the epiphany he had early in his CCAR career about the advantages he has enjoyed as a well-educated, white, upper-middle-class male and (2) his experiences that those who hold privilege are sometimes in a position to be change agents by using that privilege.

Jim is a graduate of Holy Cross College in Worcester and the University of Connecticut School of Law. He has been certified by the State of Connecticut Certification Board and the IC&RC as a CPRS (analogous to a CARC) since 2015; he has been designated by CCAR as a Recovery Coach Professional (RCP) since 2017 and a Recovery Coach Professional Facilitator (RCPF) since 2022. Jim lives in South Windsor, CT with his wife, Betty.

Karran Larson

MCDHH

REC Facilitator

Karran Larson

REC Facilitator, MCDHH

REC Facilitator, MA Commission for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Services Statewide Substance Use Recovery Support Services Coordinator Karran, a person in long-term recovery, is the MA Commission for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Services Statewide Substance Use Recovery Support Services Coordinator. Karran’s work in the recovery field has been guided by her current passion, which is developing and training Deaf Recovery Coach Services with the help of (BSAS) Bureau of Substance Addiction Services and the Massachusetts Commission.

Katie Raftery

REC Facilitator

Katie Raftery

REC Facilitator

Katie draws on her lived experience with perinatal substance use and incarceration, as well as her expertise in recovery coaching, advocacy, and peer workforce development, to transform care systems. Having navigated Opioid Use Disorder and Complex Trauma, she is committed to fostering trauma-informed, compassionate approaches that support resilience and dignity.

As a Perinatal Recovery Coach and Peer Facilitator, Katie amplifies the voices of lived/living experience and advocates for equitable, recovery-oriented policies. She believes in the power of storytelling to break stigma, inspire change, and build pathways for individuals and families to thrive.

Kim Krawczyk

REC Facilitator

Kim Krawczyk

REC Facilitator

Kimberly is a woman in long-term recovery, leveraging her personal journey, professional leadership, and a deep passion for advocacy in her multifaceted roles. As a Certified Addiction Recovery Coach (CARC), Recovery Coach Professional (RCP), Recovery Coach Peer Facilitator (RCPF), and Recovery Coach Supervisor, she embodies a commitment to the recovery community.

Her expertise spans training programs such as the Recovery Coach Academy, Recovery Coaching in Emergency Rooms, and Opioid Overdose Prevention. Kimberly's extensive experience includes training diverse professionals—DCF staff, probation officers, police, paramedics, nurses, and crisis intervention specialists in a specialized police unit, as well as pre- doctoral students and driving instructors. In her educational roles, she uses her recovery background to strengthen the peer support model, advocate for non-stigmatizing language, and promote multiple pathways to recovery, all while emphasizing the importance of building Recovery Capital. Through these efforts, Kimberly continues to make significant contributions to enhancing the effectiveness and compassion of recovery support services.

Laura Peters

Service Coordinator for Deaf and Hard of Hearing at BHN, Recovery Coach mentor for MCDHH

Laura Peters

Service Coordinator for Deaf and Hard of Hearing at BHN, Recovery Coach mentor for MCDHH

Mark Muhammad

MOAR

REC Facilitator

Mark Muhammad

REC Facilitator, MOAR

Michelle Simons

REC Facilitator

Michelle Simons

REC Facilitator

Michelle Simons is a person in long term recovery. Her recovery date is Dec 26, 2000. Michelle has been working in the addiction field since 2002. She obtained her Masters Degree in Counseling Psychology from Salem State University in 2016 along with her LADC I. She currently works for North Shore Community College teaching addiction-recovery courses and managing an addiction workforce grant. Michelle also works as a clinical and non-clinical RC supervisor for Lynn Community Health Center and Gloucester Community Impact Unit. Her paths of recovery have involved the 12 steps and she now sustains her recovery by practicing and teaching Sahaja Yoga Meditation. She has a large network of fellow meditators and mentors she leans on from all over the world. Through the various stages of recovery she has gone through she has since learned to incorporate the understanding that there is no wrong door or path to recovery and wholeheartedly honors all pathways.

Noel Sierra

MOAR

Executive Director

Noel Sierra

Executive Director, MOAR

Noel, a Latino man in long term recovery, has been working in the recovery community since 2015. Noel has worked as a House Manager, Recovery Treatment Coordinator, Recovery Coach, and Recovery Coach Supervisor. In these roles, Noel has experience in facilitating meetings, trainings, and leading presentations about recovery to the community. Currently, Noel is the Executive Director for (MOAR) Massachusetts Organization for Addiction Recovery.

Windia Rodriguez

Assistant Program Director, Recovery Education Collaborative and Recovery Coach Exchange

Windia Rodriguez

Assistant Program Director, Recovery Education Collaborative and Recovery Coach Exchange

Windia began her career in the field of recovery peer support at STEPRox, a Massachusetts funded peer recovery support center in Roxbury. She started as an active peer member and transitioned to a full-time staff member. Through her work at the recovery center, Windia became interested in Recovery Coaching completing the Recovery Coach Academy and continued to work with a recovery advocacy organization, becoming a recovery coach with Mass General Brigham Health plan. As her skills and career advanced, she then became the team lead for Population Health. During her time there, Windia became a Certified Addictions Recovery Coach and supported other recovery coaches in receiving their certification. Windia worked at Mass General Hospital as the Program Manager for the Recovery Coach Program, where her many years of experience was utilized in their SUDS Initiative. In 2025, Windia joined the Recovery Education Collaborative as Assistant Director and overseeing the Recovery Coach Exchange. Windia’s work is informed by her own sustained recovery from substance use for over twelve years using multiple pathways such as mutual aid fellowships, alternative practices such as Reiki, meditation, and yoga. She is passionate about equity and social justice issues and how it intersects with SUD care, especially in the BIPOC community. She brings in-depth personal and professional knowledge of what is required to engage in treatment and sustain recovery over time.

Latest News from REC