Few people lived their purpose as fully as our friend and colleague Tom Hedrick. Tom wasn’t just one of the founders of the Partnership for Drug-Free America in 1986; he was the heartbeat behind its evolution. What began as a bold effort to “unsell” drugs through powerful media campaigns grew, because of Tom’s insight, conviction, and compassion, into a mission centered on understanding and supporting families.
Tom saw that media could raise awareness and shift the national conversation around addiction. But over time, as he spoke with parents facing unthinkable challenges, he realized something deeper: families needed more than information. They needed connection. They needed guidance. They needed someone who truly understood their pain.
So, Tom began answering calls from parents, not because it was in his job description, but because he believed families should never have to face this journey alone. He listened. He listened to their fear, their exhaustion, their heartbreak, and the burden of blame placed unfairly on parents. He recognized the cracks in a system that too often left families to navigate addiction in isolation. And he began to challenge long-standing messages like “detach with love” or waiting for a child to “hit rock bottom,” messages that left many parents feeling hopeless or judged.
These conversations opened Tom’s eyes to a better way.
Together with his colleague, Sean Clarkin, Tom helped build a helpline staffed by trained specialists who could offer compassionate listening, trustworthy information, and personalized resources. The helpline quickly became a lifeline for families, but Tom understood that something was still missing. Families didn’t just want expertise; they wanted understanding. They wanted to talk to someone who had walked this road, felt these feelings, and made it to the other side with wisdom to share.
That insight sparked the next chapter of Tom’s vision: the Peer Coaching Program, which was created specifically to connect parents with trained volunteers who had lived experience, each one offering empathy, compassion, perspective, and hope.
He knew that pairing lived experience with evidence-based tools would be transformational. So, he led the way in training staff and parent volunteers in Community Reinforcement and Family Training (CRAFT) through our partners at the Center for Motivation and Change (CMC). The result was a coaching model built on empathy, clarity, skill, and a profound belief that families can be part of the solution.
The Partnership’s Peer Coach training program has trained over 500 coaches across the nation, a significant milestone in the evolution of the program. Tom personally connected with nearly every coach we trained. He wanted coaches to feel prepared, supported, and ready to stand alongside parents in crisis, not as experts, but as companions. He held a special place in his heart for those who had lost a child and sought to channel their grief into service, a powerful act of love and purpose. To this day, we continue to honor Tom’s legacy by providing high-quality training and ongoing support to each of our peer coaches, guiding them through every step of training and coaching. Our robust support and supervision system ensures that every volunteer and trainee receives the care and guidance needed to succeed.
Today, our Peer Coaching Program reflects everything Tom stood for and dedicated his life to. Parents can now access support in more ways than ever through one-on-one coaching over phone and text messaging, and through online support groups available in English and Spanish. We have a dedicated group for parents who have lost a loved one to substance use. In addition, the Partnership continues to offer helpline services, Help & Hope automated messages, skill-building training for parents, advocacy, and more.
Tom’s legacy lives not just in the program he envisioned, but in every parent who feels less alone, every family that finds hope, and every life touched or saved because he believed we could do better for families.
Although Tom sadly left us in the fall of 2020, the light he ignited continues to guide every parent we support, a reminder that hope shared is hope multiplied, and that one person’s compassion truly can change the world.
We are deeply grateful every day for the vision, generosity, and unwavering heart he brought to this work.
