Kristen Paquette
Chief Executive Officer
President
Kristen Paquette, MPH, CEO, President, is an accomplished leader with over a decade of experience directing C4 Innovations programs, operations, and business development. Prior to serving as CEO and President, she held key positions at C4 Innovations, including Chief Program Officer and Chief Operating Officer. As one of the founders, Kristen has contributed directly to the company’s success as it has grown from a staff of six to over 50 full-time employees.
Kristen’s primary areas of expertise include substance use prevention and recovery supports for youth and adults. As Co-Principal Investigator of a Conrad N. Hilton Foundation initiative—Project Amp—to reduce substance use among adolescents, she directs development and testing of a young adult peer-delivered intervention using a Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) framework. She also led development of a National Institute for Drug Abuse funded mobile application to engage clients—along with their counselors—in early recovery from substance use disorders.
Kristen directs C4 Innovation’s work to advance quality recovery housing. She led a statewide qualitative research project to identify and describe the state of recovery housing across communities in Ohio. She also helped develop the TICOMETER—the first validated instrument to measure trauma-informed care across human service and health care organizations.
As Project Director of the SAMHSA-funded Homelessness Resource Center, Kristen led workforce development initiatives using a cutting-edge, award-winning website that incorporated social networking, online learning, dynamic content, and an extensive digital library.
Prior to joining C4 Innovations, Kristen worked at The National Center on Family Homelessness and was an AmeriCorps VISTA member with Habitat for Humanity in Georgia. She has volunteer experience supporting parents and children in family shelters in Massachusetts. Kristen received a Master’s in Public Health from University of Massachusetts and a Bachelor’s degree from College of the Holy Cross.
Examples of Kristen’s Work
- Project Amp: Valuable Roles for Young Adult Peers in Prevention and Early Intervention
- Brief Intervention for Adolescents at Risk of Substance Use: Outcomes of a Pilot Study
- A framework for integrating young peers in recovery into adolescent substance use prevention and early intervention by C4's Kristen Paquette, Laura Pannella Winn, Catriona Wilkey, and Kathleen Ferreira as well as Laura Rose W. Donegan was published in the Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment in December 2019.
- Enhancing adolescent SBIRT with a peer-delivered intervention: An implementation study by C4's Kristen Paquette, Laura Pannella Winn, Catriona Wilkey, and Kathleen Ferreira as well as Laura Rose W. Donegan was published in the Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment in August 2019.
- Project Amp, brief intervention designed to reduce and prevent substance use for adolescents who are at risk.
- Racial Equity and Recovery, a podcast episode with Daryl McGraw, Livia Davis, and Kristen Paquette (43:28 minutes)
- How to Support Your Teams in Overwhelming Times (61:49 minute video)
- Recovery Housing in Ohio: 2021 Environmental Scan by C4's Jennifer Battis, Kristen Paquette, Kristen Harper, Jonathan Cox, Adrienne Kasmally, and Sarah Nichols
- Bringing Recovery Housing to Scale in Ohio: Lessons Learned by C4's Laura Panella Winn and Kristen Paquette in Journal of Dual Diagnosis in April 2016.
- The Role of Recovery Housing: Prioritizing Choice in Homeless Services by C4's Kristen Paquette and Laura Panella Winn in Journal of Dual Diagnosis in April 2016.
- Recovery Housing
- Trauma-Informed Care
- TICOMETER
- Organizational Trauma-Informed Care: Associations with Individual and Agency Factors by C4's Ellen L. Bassuk and Kristen Paquette as well as George J. Unick and Molly K. Richard was published in Psychological Services in 2019.
- Developing an Instrument to Measure Organizational Trauma-Informed Care in Human Services: The TICOMETER by C4's Ellen L. Bassuk, and Kristen Paquette as well as George J. Unick and Molly K. Richard was published in the Psychology of Violence in January 2016.