Where Healing Takes Root Session - Seeing the Big Picture: SUD, Systems, & Intergenerational Trauma

This presentation examines the interplay between substance use disorder, opioid addiction, and intergenerational trauma within child welfare and family-serving systems, particularly in Appalachia. Presented by Dr. Jen Randall Reyes, Director of the Center for Addiction and Trauma, and Dan McCawley, an internationally certified peer recovery support specialist with lived experience, the session bridges neuroscience with community-based intervention strategies. Key topics include the neurobiology of trauma. The speaker's highlight how chronic stress reduces hippocampal volume across generations, while emphasizing hope through neuroplasticity and neurogenesis to break trauma cycles. Participants gain actionable engagement techniques, including emotional co-regulation, meeting individuals at their level during trauma responses, and empowering self-sufficiency by avoiding over-functioning for clients.

Presenters

Jen Randall Reyes, PhD, AADC, ALPS, LPC

Program Director, Associate Professor, and Core Counselor Education Faculty, WVWC

Dr. Jen Randall Reyes has been working in the field of mental health for 20 years. In the decade she worked as a licensed counselor in the state of West Virginia, her focus has been on advanced training and practice as a trauma counselor. Her career has spanned the foster care system, juvenile justice, community mental health agencies, supervision, private practice, and consultation, including local, state, and federal advocacy efforts. Working in experiential education and adventure therapy settings early in her career eventually led to a new goal of supporting other counselors in training on the journey to find their therapeutic niche.

Jen loves teaching, supervision, research, and counseling equally. Yet, social justice and advocacy work remind her consistently why counseling matters. Counseling is not simply reducing symptoms; it is instead a focus on sustaining lasting and valuable changes that promote wellness at the individual, community, and systemic level. She is a storyteller by birth, having grown up in Buckhannon. Jen seeks to share narrative in ways that inspire her staff, students, supervisees, and clients to be agents of change rather than standing on the sidelines of their own lives.

Dan McCawley, BA, ICPR, CIP

Chief Operating Officer, West Virginia Sober Living

Dan McCawley is a West Virginia native and a person in long-term recovery who has dedicated his career to strengthening the intersection of public safety, recovery, and community health. A graduate of West Virginia University, he is an Internationally Certified Peer Recovery Support Specialist and Certified Interventionist, bringing both lived experience and professional expertise to substance use disorder response and recovery-oriented systems of care. Dan works as the COO of a nonprofit behavioral health who has historically specialized in addiction interventions and recovery housing. Dan serves as a founding board member of the National Peer Recovery Alliance (NPRA) and co-chairs the Recovery Subcommittee for the West Virginia Governor’s Council on Substance Use, Prevention, and Treatment. Recognized as a leader in the peer recovery field in West Virginia and nationally, Dan has played a key role in shaping best practices, expanding peer recovery programming, and developing training initiatives that provide continuing education for professionals across disciplines.