Rita Romero
Project Manager, Pima CARES
Co-director/Instructor, Project FUTRE Pre-apprenticeship Training
Pronouns:
she, her, hers
Rita Romero is a program manager at the University of Arizona Comprehensive Center for Pain & Addiction. She has over a decade of healthcare experience focused on peer and family support, including direct support; mentoring and supervising peer specialists; leading workforce development projects; developing and facilitating training; providing workplace consultation; and supporting advocacy and community outreach.
Romero began her career in healthcare by earning a Recovery Support Specialist certification, and later a Family Support Partner certification. She completed her MA in Rehabilitation & Mental Health Counseling at the University of Arizona and is a Licensed Associate Counselor and Certified Rehabilitation Counselor. She serves on the Association for Peer Support (APS) Advisory Council and Community of Scholars and Scientists.
Romero is a program manager for OD2A-L: Pima CARES, which focuses on providing education centered on using local data to understand overdose trends, making continuing medical education available to improve providers’ knowledge and confidence in treating substance use disorders and/or chronic pain, and promoting outreach to prevent overdoses. Romero also co-directs and instructs the pre-apprenticeship training for Project FUTRE, a Health Resources and Services Administration-funded program to train, certify, and place people with lived experience supporting a family member or other adult through substance use recovery as Parent and Family Support Specialists.