Julie Hardle is living a life of recovery from substance use disorder and serious mental illness. She was the recipient of Volunteers of America – Utah 2018 Outstanding Woman in Recovery. She has experience working for both non-profits and managed care organizations since 2009. Julie worked on a state of Utah’s taskforce to operationalize the state’s Certified Peer Specialist program, which resulted in peer support being a Medicaid-reimbursable service in 2011. She and her team developed and facilitate the state of Utah’s Optum Certified Peer Support Specialist training. She was selected as a team lead by the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors (NASMHPD) for a learning collaborative on the development of peer support services in 2013. Julie specializes in developing and operationalizing programs that utilize peer support to ground individuals in their recovery, such as Assertive Community Treatment teams, Mobile Crisis Outreach teams, Receiving Centers, Warmlines, Peer Navigator and Peer Coaching programs. Julie’s work is fueled by a passion that recovery is possible for all, as peer support is used with members to identify their personal pathway to recovery. She has a bachelor’s in communication and post graduate certificates in legal studies and leadership. She is a certified trainer/facilitator of many behavioral health trainings. Julie has been with Optum since 2011 and Optum Idaho since 2021.