We provide research and best-practice technical assistance to expand the quality and capacity of recovery housing and evidence-based services.
11/24/2025
We are excited to announce that Fletcher Group has been awarded $9.2 million in ARISE funds to support its Connect Appalachia project. This regional initiative will provide job-readiness training, recovery-friendly workplace training, and job-placement resources to 1,500 participants in recovery from substance use disorder across Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia.
Connect Appalachia will implement the Recovery-Ready Workplaces training and education model, which was developed during a previous ARISE planning project. The model will help strengthen local recovery ecosystems, reduce workforce gaps and expand economic opportunity across the region.
11/24/2025
The Kentucky Chamber Foundation will be working with the Fletcher Group, the primary recipient of ARC’s Appalachian Regional Initiative for Stronger Economies (ARISE) grant, to lead Kentucky’s role in the Connect Appalachia project. This multi-state initiative aims to strengthen recovery ecosystems, expand economic opportunity, and address critical workforce shortages across Appalachia.
As part of this initiative, the Kentucky Chamber Foundation will implement the Recovery Ready Workplaces training and education model, expanding its outreach to Kentucky-based employers. The Foundation will also work to strengthen community partnerships and support job-readiness and employment pathways for Kentuckians in recovery.
“Efforts to address substance use disorder and improve economic opportunity are too often siloed, discouraging the exchange and adoption of effective practices,” said Dr. Ernie Fletcher, Co-Founder and Chief Medical Officer, Fletcher Group, Inc. “The Connect Appalachia project will bring together experienced organizations in the six-state service area to help Appalachian employers address workforce needs and individuals maintain recovery and obtain employment. The Fletcher Group is proud to partner with these organizations to strengthen recovery pathways and expand economic opportunity.”
“We are honored to be selected by ARC and the Fletcher Group as a partner in this important work,” said Kentucky Chamber Foundation Senior Vice President Beth Davisson. “This focus is especially needed in Appalachia, where stronger recovery pathways and workforce support can change the trajectory for families and communities. With ARC’s investment and our partnership with the Fletcher Group, we can bring proven Recovery-Ready Workplace strategies to more employers and connect more Kentuckians to meaningful careers. At its core, this is about helping people rebuild their lives and giving communities a stronger foundation for the future.”
In addition to the Kentucky Chamber Foundation, consortium partners include First Tennessee Development District, Highland Rivers Behavioral Health, Jobs & Hope West Virginia, New River/Mount Rogers Workforce Development Board, Upper Cumberland Development District, and Wilkes Recovery Revolution. Together, these organizations will coordinate recovery and workforce strategies across multiple ARC counties to support communities throughout the Appalachian region.
The Kentucky Chamber Foundation has led multiple initiatives to help build a recovery-friendly business environment across the Commonwealth, delivering employer training, supporting recovery-ready hiring, and convening community partners to address substance use disorder. Learn more about the Foundation’s workforce initiatives at www.kychamberfoundation.org.
11/22/2025
We were honored to have presented at the 2025 Recovery Summit in Richmond, KY!
On Monday, November 10th, Gov. Ernie Fletcher and Tony White of the Fletcher Group shared how the Peer-Led Social Model of Recovery is transforming recovery housing—from environments of control to communities of connection, belonging, and lasting change.
Too many individuals enter recovery through jails, shelters, or mandated programs that enforce compliance but rarely spark true transformation. The Social Model is a proven, low-barrier alternative rooted in peer leadership, mutual accountability, and healing-centered culture.
Thank you to everyone who joined us to explore how the model strengthens recovery ecosystems—and how we can work together to build spaces where people can heal, grow, and thrive.
11/20/2025
We were honored to have presented at the 2025 Recovery Summit in Richmond, KY!
On Monday, November 10th, Gov. Ernie Fletcher and Tony White of The Fletcher Group shared how the Peer-Led Social Model of Recovery is transforming recovery housing—from environments of control to communities of connection, belonging, and lasting change.
Too many individuals enter recovery through jails, shelters, or mandated programs that enforce compliance but rarely spark true transformation. The Social Model is a proven, low-barrier alternative rooted in peer leadership, mutual accountability, and healing-centered culture.
Thank you to everyone who joined us to explore how the model strengthens recovery ecosystems—and how we can work together to build spaces where people can heal, grow, and thrive.
11/06/2025
Fletcher Group's Director of Research and Evaluation, Dr. Robin Thompson, presented on the Fatherhood and Recovery implementation pilot at the American Public Health Association's (APHA) annual meeting in Washington, DC, November 2-5. She also had the opportunity to present two poster presentations on the Kentucky Access to Recovery rigorous evaluation study with Dr. Terry Bunn, Amber Kizewski, and Kelsey Carter. The APHA annual meeting convenes 12,000 public health professionals and partners from around the globe to share the latest public health research and best practices.
10/31/2025
We are excited to be participating in the PAR Recovery Summit 2025!
In “Transformational Recovery Environment: From Control to Connection, The Social Model in Action,” Dr. Ernie Fletcher and Tony White from the Fletcher Group, Inc. explore how peer leadership, mutual accountability, and low-barrier access create conditions for real transformation.
With experience spanning public policy and hands-on program leadership, Ernie and Tony will share how the Social Model is reshaping recovery housing across Kentucky.
Nov 10–11 | Eastern Kentucky University
CEUs, CEs, and DLGs available
Register now: recoverysummit.org
09/26/2025
Our Newsletter is back! Check out our September Issue to learn how to de-escalate and resolve any kind of conflict. Check it out here:https://www.fletchergroup.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/FLETCHER-GROUP-RCOE-SEPTEMBER-2025-NEWSLETTER.pdf
NEW PARTNERSHIPS Help Fletcher Group Expand Its Reach and Effectiveness
Fletcher Group is pleased to announce several new partnerships that will help us reach more people and fulfill our mission of helping people move from the disease of addiction and the devastation of homelessness to lives of hope, dignity, and fulfillment.
Kentucky's Department of Public Advocacy provides high-quality, client-centered legal representation to indigents of all ages accused of crimes or facing a deprivation of liberty throughout the Commonwealth of Kentucky.
NET Recovery is the producer of an innovative non-chemical device that has been proven effective at helping patients through opioid withdrawal.
io provides realistic voiceover modeling to support our webinars, online Learning Center classes, and podcasts.
09/22/2025
Join our October 2 Webinar at 2pm to Learn How Deflection Works and Why it Matters, Especially in Rural Communities
Deflection improves public safety by referring people with substance-use disorders and behavioral health needs as early as possible away from arrest and prosecution and into community-based support, services, and treatment.
To help you gain a better understanding of the role of deflection for those in recovery, particularly those in rural areas, the Fletcher Group's October 2 webinar will feature three of the nation's leading experts on deflection.
What You'll Learn
• How successful deflection establishes coordinated, upstream interventions at the earliest point possible so that underlying problems can be identified and responded to before a crisis, overdose, or arrest occurs
• How deflection uses evidence-based practices to build a bridge connecting law enforcement and treatment, thereby reducing drug use and drug-related crime while lessening the burden on justice and crisis-response systems
• The difference between deflection and diversion, and how deflection complements prevention and diversion
• How to distinguish the six deflection pathways
• How to describe to others what Guy, Jac and Sydney call "The Deflection Bridge"
• How you can join the national deflection conversation
09/19/2025
We had a great team attend the 2025 NARR National Conference. We gave 3 presentations that covered our Fatherhood Initiative, an update on national recovery policy and future opportunities and on recovery services funding including Medicaid Alternative Payment methodologies.
It was wonderful to see friends doing great work in the recovery community. But we were saddened to hear of Susan Binn's passing; she was a friend and great champion of recovery and a critical founder of NARR. We will miss her.
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The Fletcher Group’s roots go back over two decades to the construction in 1993 of a novel shelter built for homeless women in Lexington, Kentucky by philanthropists Don and Mira Ball. The effectiveness of the Ball’s “Hope Center” in addressing the underlying causes of homelessness, including addiction, intrigued Ernie Fletcher when he was elected governor of Kentucky ten years later.
Having previously served three terms in the United States House of Representatives, Fletcher was familiar with the workings of federal and state government agencies that typically operate independently of each other. Atuned to the devastation being caused by the opioid epidemic, Fletcher realized the value not only of what the Balls had done in building and operating Hope Center, but what they had learned in doing so.
Fletcher soon appointed Don Ball Chairman of the Kentucky Housing Corporation. Within a year, their new Recovery Kentucky program had acquired the partners and resources needed to construct the state’s first Recovery Center.
Seventeen more centers would eventually be built, each applying the innovative “Blended Funding” business model developed by Ernie, Don and Mira. To fund both construction and day-to-day operating costs, that approach solicits and coordinates funding and resources from a wide variety of private and public entities as well as faith-based initiatives and the private sector.
Fletcher’s tenure as governor would eventually end, but not his desire to help the homeless, particularly those suffering from substance use disorders. The Balls felt the same way and in 2017 invited Ernie to lead a national effort to extend their successful model beyond Kentucky to states across the nation.
Thus was born the Fletcher Group and a vision of effective and sustainable Recovery housing unlike any other.
