Nuestro equipo
Nze Okoronta (they/them)
Co-fundador y Defensor del Apoyo de Pares
Esta es la descripción de su miembro del equipo. Use este espacio para escribir una breve descripción del rol y las responsabilidades de esta persona, o agregue una breve biografía con un resumen de antecedentes. También es una gran oportunidad para resaltar cómo esta persona es un activo para el equipo.
Lucrecia (she/her/ella)
Co-fundador y Defensor del Apoyo de Pares
Esta es la descripción de su miembro del equipo. Use este espacio para escribir una breve descripción del rol y las responsabilidades de esta persona, o agregue una breve biografía con un resumen de antecedentes. También es una gran oportunidad para resaltar cómo esta persona es un activo para el equipo.
Geena Rupp (ella/ella)
Co-fundador y Defensor del Apoyo Organizacional
Geena es una esposa y madre local con experiencia vivida de abuso de sustancias que interrumpen la vida, trauma, diagnóstico psiquiátrico, sistemas judiciales locales, programas judiciales de resolución de problemas y más. Trabaja incesantemente para vivir una vida equilibrada adoptando varios modelos/programas de recuperación y enfoques alternativos que sanan el cuerpo, la mente y el espíritu. Geena continúa levantándose de lo que parecía un "estado aparentemente sin esperanza" aprendiendo a aceptar las curvas del universo con las personas que ama. Se ha dado cuenta de que todos se recuperan de manera diferente y que no existe un modelo único para todos cuando se trata de curación. En lugar de centrarse en lo que solo funciona para ella, se esfuerza por encontrar alternativas para que cualquiera pueda encontrar un camino de curación y que su viaje sea de mínima resistencia.
Geena fue invitada a unirse al consejo rector de este proyecto de expansión y actualmente se desempeña como defensora organizacional de Yarrow Collective, cuyas funciones principales son ayudar a suavizar el aspecto organizacional de este colectivo emergente y en constante cambio.
Ashleigh (she/her)
Co-fundador y Defensor del Apoyo de Pares
Esta es la descripción de su miembro del equipo. Use este espacio para escribir una breve descripción del rol y las responsabilidades de esta persona, o agregue una breve biografía con un resumen de antecedentes. También es una gran oportunidad para resaltar cómo esta persona es un activo para el equipo.
Melissa (she/her)
Youth Program Lead
Melissa is a long time Fort Collins resident. Having attended elementary through high school in Poudre School District she feels rooted in and committed to supporting her hometown. She is the Mother of 4 children ranging in age 10-20. Some of her most valuable education has come through her lived experiences with mental health struggles, suicidality, grief and substance misuse. She is passionate about creating opportunities for underrepresented identities to come together to practice compassion and curiosity while in community. As a queer, multiracial woman, Melissa continues to grapple with identity concepts. At times feeling fractured or not enough, she has come to see her shapeshifting as a superpower helping her to see many different perspectives. As she practices welcoming the many parts of her to coexist she feels alignment and peace. Sitting in peer support circles with Melissa feels soft and centered. She blends her 10 years of experience sitting in and facilitating community peer support circles. She co-founded and co-facilitates Unity in Community, a space for BIPOC and multiracial community members to gather and talk about mental health with the nuances of our different cultures. She created Seed Circles, a peer support space for youth to practice seeing themselves and their community with compassion and curiosity.
Zalena (they/she)
Community Care Team Lead
Zalena is a queer, "highly sensitive," and neurodivergent individual who has navigated chronic thoughts of suicide since childhood. After experiencing hospitalization due to suicidality in 2016, Zalena became deeply committed to creating spaces where humans can express thoughts of suicide without fear of punishment or repercussion. Their journey has also been shaped by profound experiences with traumatic loss and grief, which have fueled a passion for grief work that honors the complexities of loss and the need for communal healing.
In their daily life, Zalena contends with challenges stemming from experiences commonly associated with obsessive-compulsive disorder, social anxiety, depression, and chronic post-traumatic stress disorder. However, they choose not to pursue formal diagnoses, instead focusing on self-understanding and community care.
Zalena is a fierce advocate for the abolition of systems that perpetuate racism, misogyny, ableism, and homophobia. They believe that thoughts of suicide often reflect systemic oppression rather than individual "mental illness" or abnormality. Since 2018, they have been actively involved in peer-based mental health services, with a particular passion for creating accessible, peer-run, and holistic alternatives to traditional mental health care.
Maggie (she/her/ella)
Harm Reduction & Recovery Coordinator
Maggie is a Chicana and has been rooted in the beautiful landscapes of Colorado for the last 44 years.
She is a proud mother of six and grandmother to eleven wonderful grandchildren. She is passionate about fostering inclusion, mindfulness, and respect in her life and work. She dedicates her time to supporting the Yarrow Collective's mission while embracing life’s adventures- including her love for cooking, reading, dancing, hiking, and crocheting.
She faced and has overcome many challenges in her life; including substance misuse, mental health struggles, suicidality, domestic violence, the removal of her children during a period of unwellness, and childhood trauma. She deeply understands the complex, non-linear path to healing, striving to walk with others on their own paths. She is a co-founder and co-facilitator of Unity in Community, a space for BIPOC and multiracial community members to gather and engage non-clinical peer support.
Destiny (she/her)
Drop-In Peer Support Advocate
Destiny (she/ella) is a proud queer, neurodivergent, chicana poet who has faced a wide range of adversity throughout her life. Raised in Texas, she holds a strong appreciation for culture and family that she brought to Fort Collins in 2021. Despite personal obstacles, she reached her goals as an athlete and first-generation student, earning a Master of Public Health degree from CSU in 2023.
Anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation are a continuous aspect in her self-discovery recovery journey. She carries lived/ing experience with substance use, self harm, disordered eating, sexual assault, and domestic/family violence. With this, Destiny strives to be an example of strength for underrepresented identities and those who feel like their mind works against them. Surviving a difficult past, Destiny is filled with sympathy, compassion, understanding, and hope. She believes that we make our mistakes - but our mistakes don't make us. Valuing love and respect, if people can’t remember her, they’ll remember love.
Destiny adores her role in community offering drop-in peer support, acudetox, and group facilitation. She also helps to uplift youth through Yarrow Collective's Seed Circles curriculum.
Matt (he/him)
Re-Entry Peer Support Advocate
Matt has been working as a peer for nearly three years. When he began his recovery journey, he wasn’t sure what direction his life would take but eventually, he discovered a passion for peer support work. He brings lived experience with substance misuse, mental health challenges, incarceration, and poverty. These experiences have fueled his commitment to supporting others who face similar struggles. For Matt, the most powerful part of this work is simply showing up—offering support, building genuine connections, and growing alongside the people he supports, no matter their circumstances.
In his free time, Matt enjoys going to the gym, spending time with friends and family, listening to music, and watching the UFC fights.
Nuestro consejo rector
TJ (he/they) is a passionate 18-year-old nonbinary individual who strives to help their communities. He has worked with the local LGBTQ+ youth in Fort Collins as well as supporting teen mental health. They are neurodivergent and have faced suicidality throughout much of their life. TJ finds creativity as a helpful outlet in which to cope with their struggles, such as through poetry and drawing. He believes his purpose is to help others who struggle and to advocate for others' needs as well as their own. They are a facilitator for the teen support group, ECHO.
Xander (they/them) is a co-founder and facilitator of the chronic illness and disability support group, where they are pushing back on the narrative that being disabled means a small, isolated life. Xander is an abolitionist facilitator, writer, potter, dancer, story collector, body worker and spiritual and relationship coach. They most love to work in the intersections of disability, queerness and spirituality. They have been living with chronic pain and physical challenges since they were young, which contributed to them repressing their anger, sadness and pain, trying to hold up a life where they would be seen as capable and viable, at all costs. Eventually their body and mind were in an untenable state of pain and anxiety, which led them to come back to their body and feelings, and start to shift long-held emotional patterns. Xander has been learning what it means to feel capable and valuable, while recognizing and tending their real challenges. This hasn't always come easy for them, and they love the mutual healing that can come from spaces where people can be honest about their full range of feelings and experiences (including the pain that is so often hidden).
Shaka (they/them) My name is Shaka and I'm very excited to be joining effort with the Yarrow Collective. I've been brought into the team as a harm reduction peer facilitator. As a QTBIPoC adoptee, raised in Colorado, who is now a single momma with two children of my own, the concept of peer-led community connection is extremely important to me. I hold a degree in Social Work from CSU and ample first hand experience with systemic colonialization and oppression, and their symptoms. I feel very privileged and prepared to be able to participate in this vital kind community care and harm reduction in action.
My life time spent growing and learning, in community with others throughout the state of Colorado, [especially deep in the healing medicine of the forests and mountains] has given me a plethora of real life, feet-on-the-ground experience to excel in this role. I look forward to learning from everyone around the intentional vision, here at Yarrow. It's about Our collective health!I'm privileged to be in this position to serve in community, on the ancestral lands of the Tséstho’e (Cheyenne), Očhéthi Šakówiŋ, hinono’eino’ biito’owu’ (Arapaho), and Núu-agha-tʉvʉ-pʉ̱ (Ute) Nations; aka Fort Collins
Jesenia (she/her) was born in Los Angeles, California. In 1992, she relocated to Fort Collins due to the Rodney King riots and has called it home ever since. Jesenia is married and has a beautiful family, including three sons—and two whom are little angels.
She has overcome many life challenges, including childhood trauma, domestic violence, substance use, gang involvement, and being shot. Jesenia has spent time in various correctional facilities, including jail, department of corrections, and halfway houses. She successfully completed parole over a decade ago.
Through her experiences, Jesenia deeply relates to the struggles many people face in life. She finds purpose and fulfillment in giving back to her community and is honored to be part of the Yarrow Collective team.
Mack (she/they) is a disability advocate, poet, and community organizer focused on building communal disability pride in the face of an increasingly ableist culture. Their belief is that cultivating joy and worth as a disabled, Sick queer person is humanity- preserving as the cultural mainstream tries to strip it away. Mack believes that moving toward each others’ pain and mortality as community members is a portal to unlock the magic of existence.
She hopes that by sharing art, community, and truth telling within disabled community, that the world may be exposed to the deep value of disabled lives and our necessary contributions to revolution.
Elise (she/her) is a facilitator, community organizer, prison abolitionist, artist, dancer, and early childhood specialist who approaches her work with the belief that each person is the expert in themselves and their needs. She also believes that we are better equipped to make supportive choices when we are sufficiently resourced: physically, emotionally, spiritually, economically, and socially. Having battled postpartum depression and anxiety that led to suicidality, Elise knows personally that many people and systems offering "support" would have also institutionalized, criminalized, or otherwise punished her if she had been honest about all she faced. Her conditions went undiagnosed and untreated for years, and her survival of them is largely due to the wisdom of Mad communities, friends and family with shared values, and her unrelenting commitment to both personal autonomy and collective liberation. As a white, queer, Mad mother of two, Elise feels a strong responsibility to actively live into a world worthy of all our children, and to continuously shrink the gap between her values and her actions. She is both humbled and honored to support Yarrow in connecting folks with one another and with true community care.
Holly (she/her) believes that when humans sit together in circles, it becomes a sacred space for healing. She is fortunate to get to co-facilitate Yarrow's in-person Alternatives to Suicide group. This group has been a support for Holly and an avenue to express her values of connection, curiosity, and acceptance. Throw in a little beauty, joy, and pleasure, and you've got a recipe for a powerful act of resistance to white supremacy, capitalism, patriarchy, and the like!
Holly grew up in Fort Collins, spent her 20's and 30's in Seattle and Austin, then moved back to Fort Collins to raise her kiddos. At home in circles, peer support has been something she has done for years, but only recently named it as this. Holly loves learning and has been enjoying both Yarrow’s training programs and participating in the mentorship program. She brings herself to this work as a queer white woman who has experienced her way of life being pathologized in many ways, including substance misuse, disordered eating, OCD, depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, and sexual trauma. Holly seeks to un-pathologize and de-colonize her body by acknowledging the myriad external factors that have contributed to her way of being, focusing on coming home to her body, and re-wilding her spirit.
Cedar (they/he) is a trans masculine nonbinary peer supporter who carries a grounding, tender, and warm presence. They hold space where laughter and grief can sit side by side, believing healing happens with honesty, connection, and trust. Using empathy, humor, and a trauma informed lens, they support others in finding their own innate wisdom, voice, and resilience.
As a neurodivergent person, who has navigated complex trauma, depression, and suicidality, Cedar knows there isn't a right way to heal -- but it’s about riding the waves, knowing there's a time for rest and when to get back up. Their work grows from a deep reverence for community and collective liberation, finding balance between independence and interdependence, solitude and belonging.
Cedar is committed to continually decolonizing their approach to care, challenging systems of power, and staying teachable in all ways.
When not in peer spaces, he enjoys taking care of his reptiles, embroidery, camping, and making memories with family and friends.
Nuestro consejo rector
Shannon Hughes, PhD (she/her)
Socio Académico
Shannon es profesora adjunta en CSU en la Escuela de Trabajo Social y dirige el Laboratorio de Alternativas para la Salud Mental y la Curación. Su laboratorio enfatiza alternativas holísticas, centradas en la persona y basadas en pares basadas en la síntesis de evidencia de investigación, pensamiento innovador y asociación comunitaria. Ayudar a formar el Colectivo Yarrow ha sido un proyecto emocionante con un gran potencial para desarrollar nuevas alternativas no clínicas y no coercitivas en el condado de Larimer y Colorado. Shannon ha sido una apasionada de las alternativas a los sistemas medicalizados de atención durante más de una década y participa activamente en el apoyo a los movimientos de apoyo entre pares en Colorado con un interés particular en el desarrollo de relevo entre pares y otras alternativas psicosociales a la hospitalización para personas que experimentan crisis o situaciones extremas. estados En su tiempo libre, a Shannon le gusta leer, estar en la naturaleza, viajar, hacerse la manicura y la pedicura y pasar el rato con amigos.
Board of Directors
Jess Stohlmann-Rainey (she/her)
Socio Académico
Shannon es profesora adjunta en CSU en la Escuela de Trabajo Social y dirige el Laboratorio de Alternativas para la Salud Mental y la Curación. Su laboratorio enfatiza alternativas holísticas, centradas en la persona y basadas en pares basadas en la síntesis de evidencia de investigación, pensamiento innovador y asociación comunitaria. Ayudar a formar el Colectivo Yarrow ha sido un proyecto emocionante con un gran potencial para desarrollar nuevas alternativas no clínicas y no coercitivas en el condado de Larimer y Colorado. Shannon ha sido una apasionada de las alternativas a los sistemas medicalizados de atención durante más de una década y participa activamente en el apoyo a los movimientos de apoyo entre pares en Colorado con un interés particular en el desarrollo de relevo entre pares y otras alternativas psicosociales a la hospitalización para personas que experimentan crisis o situaciones extremas. estados En su tiempo libre, a Shannon le gusta leer, estar en la naturaleza, viajar, hacerse la manicura y la pedicura y pasar el rato con amigos.
Hava Simmons
Treasurer
Hava Simmons graduated from Colorado State University with a degree in Human Development and Family Studies with a focus in adolescence. Since that time, she has worked in Colorado, Washington, Virginia and Nevada. Hava has extensive experience in a variety of social service arenas such as prevention of out of home placements, provision of in-home wraparound services, adult and juvenile corrections, child protection, human trafficking efforts, trauma informed service provision and various other areas of child welfare. Currently Hava works as a full-time Social Casework Manager for Larimer County Department of Human Services supervising a unit of caseworkers who are assigned to adolescents involved in the delinquency system as well as youth in conflict and youth who have aged out of the Child Welfare system. In December of 2016 Hava completed a Certificate Program at Georgetown University in Reducing Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Juvenile Justice. In 2017 Hava was appointed by Governor Hickenlooper to the Colorado Division of Youth Services Community Board and in 2018 he appointed her to the Colorado Human Trafficking Council. In 2019 she participated in the Human Trafficking Leadership Academy through the National Human Trafficking Training and Technical Assistance Center. Hava considers herself fortunate to be an ally to those with varying types of lived experience and is very passionate about work in spaces that promote equity.
Isabel Serafin (she/they)
Member-at-Large
Isabel (she/they) is a person in long-term recovery from substance use, eating disorders, and trauma. With their professional roots in grassroots political organizing and municipal politics, as well as extensive work in the Substance Use Treatment field as a Peer Recovery Coach, Case Manager, and Community Outreach Coordinator, Isabel has experienced both the assets and limitations of traditional behavioral health firsthand. For her, the work of increasing accessibility to a wider variety of culturally competent resources is not only important, but lifesaving. Isabel also serves on the board of Colorado Artists in Recovery (CAiR), a statewide non-profit dedicated to providing free creative programming to those in recovery, as well as sitting on the Steering Committee for the MHSU Alliance of Larimer County as a Lived/Living Expert. In their free time, you can usually find them hosting or performing at a CAiR open mic night, attending various recovery meetings, or going on a run with their beloved Pitbull, Arya.
Katie Bourque (she/her)
Secretary
Katie Bourque has been engaged in non-profit work for over fifteen years and has been managing innovative projects and programs for over a decade. Katie’s passions are decarcerating care, harm/risk reduction, cognitive liberty, and centering the voices of folks with lived and living experience. Katie has experienced the power of mutuality and collective healing with peer support. She has worked with criminally and psychiatrically incarcerated or formerly incarcerated individuals for over a decade in prisons, hospitals, and in the community. She has over six years of experience providing Housing First services, including at a director level. Katie has experience in numerous residential settings, including as Soteria Vermont's director for many years and more recently the director of Rosewood Cottage Peer Respite in Vermont, which opened in fall 2024. She has managed a variety of peer support services including peer services at a mental health urgent care, a drop-in peer community center, and a state-wide and a national 24/7 peer support line. Katie was in a leadership role in the psychedelic peer support space for a year and is particularly interested in Ibogaine as a tool for folks struggling with opiates. She has been offering consultation in Iceland since 2023 and served as faculty (and is a former fellow) of Yale University’s Lived Experience Transformational Leadership Academy for Iceland’s 2025 cohort. Katie identifies with an array of lived experiences, including: psychiatric labels, trauma, personal and relational substance use, parental incarceration, and loved ones attempting and dying by suicide. Katie aspires to reform systems that perpetuate oppression and to create inclusive and dynamic community spaces.
