Jay Unick, PhD, MSW, of the School of Social Work shares how Implementation Research to Improve Services is helping communities expand what works — and build stronger systems of recovery support.
What if research didn’t just study addiction recovery, but helped shape it?
That’s the driving force behind the work of Jay Unick, PhD, MSW, professor at the University of Maryland School of Social Work. Through Implementation Research to Improve Services (IRIS), Unick is helping bring stronger, evidence-based support to people with opioid use disorder (OUD). Funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, IRIS builds recovery research infrastructure by fostering community-academic partnerships designed to develop and scale effective recovery practices.
IRIS works closely with community-based organizations like Baltimore’s People Encouraging People, which conducts street outreach to individuals experiencing homelessness and OUD, helping them access housing and treatment. “What they were finding is that they didn't really have any tools for measuring whether they were being successful or not,” Unick explained. “We partnered with them to identify existing tools, to modify those tools, and then to test out how well those tools were working in practice.”
A core part of IRIS’ mission is ensuring that lessons learned extend beyond a single organization. Unick stressed the importance of sharing tools and insights widely and of ensuring that public resources are used wisely. “Most recovery services are paid for with tax dollars through Medicaid, block grants, city funds,” he said. “Making sure that our services are effective is just good public stewardship. It’s just good practice.”
In a new video Q&A, Unick shares how IRIS is helping communities expand what works — and build stronger systems of recovery support.