Baker College partners with Recovery Mobile Clinic for nursing student clinical experiences

Baker College and Recovery Mobile Clinic have formed a partnership that will create new clinical experience opportunities for the college’s nursing students. Beginning in the Spring 2026 semester, all of Baker College’s nursing students will complete a portion of their required clinical hours within a Recovery Mobile Clinic RV, providing community assistance alongside the team. Recovery Mobile Clinics provide treatment and assistance to individuals during addiction recovery.

According to an article on Baker College’s website, Kristin Powals, DNP, RN, CNE, RNC-MNN, CLC, CPN, who serves as the Clinical Coordinator and a professor in the College of Nursing, explained how the partnership came to fruition after seeing the RVs during a community event over the summer. She is quoted as saying, “I asked Jordana [Latozas, founder of Recovery Mobile Clinic] about the possibility of our nursing students shadowing their team, and she was incredibly receptive. This partnership creates invaluable real-world learning for our students while supporting a critically underserved patient population. This collaboration provides real-life exposure to individuals experiencing addiction and connects classroom concepts in both mental health and community health to live patient interactions. We need more public health nurses and this may create interest. This experience is needed because it prepares nursing students to care effectively for people with substance use disorders, a population they will encounter in almost every healthcare setting. It also helps them develop empathy, cultural humility, and practical skills for delivering safe, trauma-informed, and low-barrier care to individuals who often face major obstacles accessing traditional healthcare.”

The partnership will place Baker College nursing students directly on Recovery Mobile Clinic RVs, giving them the opportunity to work alongside the organization’s healthcare team members to provide care to individuals experiencing substance use disorders. The RVs provide care to individuals in six Michigan counties, including Genesee, Ingham, Macomb, Monroe, Oakland, and Wayne. Services include providing addiction medications, mental health support, and access to other resources.

The work done with the mobile clinics helps reduce stigma around addiction and recovery, and will help the nursing students who work on them gain empathy, trauma-informed communication skills, interprofessional teamwork skills, and how to assist with harm reduction. 

Recovery Mobile Clinic sees an estimated 2,000 patients per month. It has grown to utilize five RVs to provide treatment around its service area, and each RV includes a check-in area, a private consultation area, and medication management areas. The organization has 40 community partners, which it utilizes when referring patients to other organizations for different or more care.

Latozas noted, “Our goal is to bridge the gap in addiction and mental health care by meeting patients where they are. We’re a feeder, whereas we help individuals stabilize and then connect them with higher levels of care. At the end of the day, we’re trying to break down the stigma between mental health and substance abuse. People are people, no matter what they’re dealing with.”

For more information about Baker College, visit the school’s website.