Rapid Response to Recovery Eastern Community Engagement Specialist

About the position

The CDC Foundation helps the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) save and improve lives by unleashing the power of collaboration between CDC, philanthropies, corporations, organizations, and individuals to protect the health, safety and security of America and the world. The CDC Foundation is the sole entity authorized by Congress to mobilize philanthropic partners and private-sector resources to support CDC’s critical health protection mission. Since 1995, the CDC Foundation has launched approximately 1,000 programs and raised over \$740 million. The CDC Foundation managed over 300 CDC-led programs in the United States and in more than 130 countries last year. Overview: The CDC Foundation is seeking a highly skilled individual to serve as the Rapid Response to Recovery (RRR) Eastern Implementation Specialist for the Kentucky Rural Health Transformation Program. The Eastern Implementation Specialist will lead regional implementation efforts across RRR components in Eastern Kentucky, from guiding implementation efforts such as the launch of new Emergency Psychiatric Assessment, Treatment and Healing (EmPATH) units in Eastern hospitals and community paramedicine teams in Eastern, rural counties. The Eastern Implementation Specialist will spend significant time traveling within the region to engage hospital leaders, primary care providers, EMS agencies, Community Mental Health Centers, and community coalitions.

Responsibilities

• Support the rollout of RRR pilot programs in Eastern Kentucky by developing communication materials (i.e., press releases, one-pagers, flyers) to support partner awareness, community understanding, and consistent messaging across RRR components.
• Coordinate with implementation specialists and pilot sites (e.g., ARH Hazard, King’s Daughters) to deliver clear, locally relevant rollout communications that support adoption.
• Nurture strong relationships with key partners across Eastern Kentucky by spending extensive time in communities to establish trust with hospitals, CMHCs, clinical directors, and EMS directors.
• Actively participate in regional coalitions, forums, and workgroups related to rural health and behavioral health; attend standing meetings such as regional healthcare consortiums, mental health advocacy chapter meetings, and EMS regional alliance meetings as RRR’s representative.
• Center lived experience and community voice in RRR design and implementation, including engaging peers, CHWs, individuals with prior crisis episodes, and community-based organizations to inform program design and continuous improvement.
• Build and broker cross‑sector relationships and coalitions to engage diverse community leaders, strengthen trust, address social drivers of health, and support sustainable crisis response efforts.
• Serve as the primary liaison between RRR leadership and local communities by coordinating with state agencies (i.e., Department for Public Health, Department for Behavioral Health, Developmental, and Intellectual Disabilities) to align with statewide initiatives.
• Assess and support partnership/system readiness across pilot communities, including stakeholder alignment, sustainability planning, and community acceptability of program design – with attention to local context, cultural considerations, and network capacity.
• Organize periodic calls or meet-ups for cross-collaboration (i.e., ARH Hazard’s EmPATH unit can share lessons learned with leadership at King’s Daughters as they prepare their own unit).
• Help tailor RRR tools and materials so they are personalized for each, Eastern Kentucky partner; provide feedback to the RRR team on any training or toolkits that may need adjusting for local context.
• Support the integration of RRR services with existing local systems (i.e., work with 911 dispatch centers in Eastern counties to identify and divert calls to community paramedicine teams rather than law enforcement).
• Use regular engagement with communities to spot systemic issues or gaps early and convene the right partners to solve them.
• Maintain an Eastern region dashboard tracking community engagement and local ownership of RRR components, using insights to support evaluation and continuous improvement of all components.
• Conduct debriefs with local teams to learn what’s working and what barriers remain in the Eastern region.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in public health, health administration, social services, technology, or a related field.
• Minimum 3 years of experience leading community engagement, outreach, or relationship-based program implementation, preferably in rural or underserved communities.
• Demonstrated ability to build trust, facilitate partnerships, and engage diverse stakeholders, including community members, service providers, and local leaders.
• Strong organizational skills with the ability to track activities, synthesize community input, and adapt approaches based on feedback and local context.

Nice-to-haves

• Background or experience in behavioral health, crisis services, or community-based mental health systems, including familiarity with stigma reduction and culture-change efforts.
• Understanding of Kentucky’s behavioral health and crisis response landscape, including community-based services and supports.
• Experience supporting community-informed evaluation, qualitative feedback collection, or learning efforts (i.e., focus groups, surveys, and listening sessions).
• Familiarity with funding, regulatory, or policy environments related to behavioral health, crisis services, or rural health initiatives.
• Lived experience in Eastern Kentucky communities.