Press & Media
Jeffrey T. Crick
Master’s-level human service counselor · Post-graduate certification in pastoral counseling · Founder, ReDefined Mission
He has been the man in the program, the counselor across the desk, and the director who had to make the call.
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Jeffrey T. Crick went from addiction, homelessness, and time behind bars to a full Governor’s pardon, five degrees, and a career counseling the people he used to be.
Jeffrey T. Crick is a master’s-level human service counselor with post-graduate certification in pastoral counseling, an addiction counselor, an adjunct professor, and the founder of ReDefined Mission. He came up through addiction and homelessness, and he has been behind bars. He went back into a rescue mission on staff, helped design a 40-plus-bed residential recovery program, and directed it. Today he holds a full Governor’s pardon, five degrees, and has written thirteen books for people rebuilding after addiction, incarceration and collapse. He has been the man in the program, the counselor across the desk, and the director who had to make the call.
Jeffrey T. Crick’s life came apart the way a lot of lives do — addiction first, then homelessness, then time behind bars. A rescue mission took him in when there was no reason to.
Years later he was on that mission’s staff. He helped design a 40-plus-bed, nine-to-twelve-month co-ed residential recovery program — structure, phases, staffing, curriculum — and then served as its Residential Program Director. He has since served as a Director of Operations for a healthcare institute, and today practices as an addiction counselor in Knoxville while teaching as an adjunct professor.
He holds a master’s in human service counseling and post-graduate certification in pastoral counseling, along with five degrees and a graduate certificate in community health from Vanderbilt. He is completing a master’s in clinical mental health counseling on the licensure track. The Governor of Tennessee granted him a full pardon.
He has written thirteen books for people rebuilding after addiction, incarceration and collapse, and founded ReDefined Mission, a 501(c)(3) built on one sentence: Your mission is not over. It’s just being ReDefined.
Interview topics
Meeting the Lord in the ditch
What actually changed — and why it wasn’t willpower, a program, or hitting bottom.
From behind bars to a pardon
What restoration costs, how long it takes, and what it means when a state formally says this is over.
Why shame is a terrible clinical tool
What it does to engagement and retention — and why the church reaches for it first.
Building a recovery program
What he learned helping build a 40-plus-bed residential recovery program and then running it — including the decisions that still cost him.
When someone comes home
What families get wrong about the first ninety days after treatment or prison.
The people who do this work
Burnout, moral injury, and why the best staff in recovery ministry leave.
Why he’s a good guest
Most recovery guests can speak from lived experience or from clinical training. Jeffrey does both — and he can tell an audience exactly where the two disagree.
He has also sat in a third chair almost nobody brings to a microphone. He helped design a 40-plus-bed residential recovery program and then ran it, so he knows what it costs administratively to say yes to one man and no to another. He is comfortable live, comfortable taking calls, and comfortable with the parts most guests leave out.
For organizations — staff training
The Ones Who Stay
A 90-minute session for the people who carry other people’s worst days.
Frontline recovery and mission staff absorb relapse, overdose, and family collapse — often in the same week — and then go home and try to be present. Almost none have been taught what that does to a person. So they go numb, they get cynical, and the good ones leave. Organizations call it turnover and repost the job.
This session names what is actually happening, distinguishes burnout from secondary traumatic stress, compassion fatigue and moral injury, and hands every participant one practice they can use before their next shift. Virtual or in person. A 30-minute leadership debrief with supervisors is included at no additional cost.
Credentials
M.A. Human Service Counseling — Liberty M.A. Clinical Mental Health Counseling — LPC track, in progress B.S. Religion, Christian Leadership — Liberty B.A. Christian Ministry & Leadership — City Vision Post-Graduate Certificate, Pastoral Counseling — Liberty Graduate Certificate, Community Health Worker — Vanderbilt Master Mental Health Coach — AACC
Experience
- Addiction Counselor — East Tennessee Addiction Specialists, Knoxville
- Adjunct Professor — City Vision University
- Director of Operations — New Hope Healthcare Institute
- Program Developer & Residential Program Director — rescue mission; helped design and then directed a 40-plus-bed, 9–12 month co-ed residential recovery program
- Founder & Director — ReDefined Mission, 501(c)(3)
Booking & press
Jeffrey T. Crick
Knoxville, Tennessee
jeffrey@redefinedmission.com · 865-257-7653
High-resolution headshot, full bio, and book list available on request.
Available for interviews on short notice. Comfortable live.