Peer Advisory council

Ashley Wurth, MA, works as the North Carolina Overdose Prevention and Harm Reduction Regional Coordinator—Western Region as a CDC Foundation assignee to NCDHHS DPH IVPB. Prior to this role she worked in the Watauga LEAD and Recovery on the Inside programs as well as for AppHealthCare providing harm reduction services. Ashley is a former drug user and justice-involved person who utilizes her lived experience for advocacy and awareness.

She holds a Master of Arts in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from Appalachian State University as well as a graduate certificate in addictions counseling. Ashley currently resides in Boone, NC, with her teenaged offspring, Blaze and Delilah; she spends her free time cycling, writing, hiking, and chasing sunsets.

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John Simmons is currently employed as an NC Certified Peer Support Specialist with AppHealthCare serving Alleghany, Ashe and Watauga counties where he works with justice involved individuals as a link
to resources and services assisting with re-entry needs. John has been involved in jail/prison outreach in one form or another for 35 years. He believes in meeting people where they are and is a strong
advocate for harm reduction. John identifies as a person with substance use disorder in recovery and has sustained his recovery for more than 39 years. John has become involved in restorative justice through his wife who is an advocate for this work and is
involved with Campbell Law RJ Clinic, the Capital Restorative Justice, NC Victim Assistant Network NC Coalition for Restorative Justice and the North Carolina Coalition for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. John is vigilant in his pursuit to seek out opportunities to help others and provide resources and ways for them to live a safer lifestyle; the key word being ‘live’.

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Mike Tanner is President of NAMI High Country and a trained leader of NAMI Family Support Groups, Family-to-Family Education Program, and Basics. He has served on the NAMI High Country Board of Directors since 2016. He is retired from careers in law and ministry. For 10 years of his pastoral education and ministry, he worked in Atlanta with and among people living with serious mental illness, most of the time as their pastor and director of a day program offering enrichment, services, and community. While in that role, he conducted qualitative research regarding experiences of people with mental illness in faith communities as his Doctor of Ministry project. His report on that research, Mental Illness & Belonging: A Pastor’s Inquiry, can be found at his website: https://belonging.today/. His extended family includes multiple loved ones with lived experience of addiction and mental illness and of living in recovery. He provides supply clergy services and served as an on-call chaplain at the Watauga Medical Center from 2017 to 2020. He and his wife Cozette are parents of five adult children and have three grandchildren.