Ro Arias

Ro (they/she) began their 20-plus-year recovery journey as a therapy patient at age 10. Shortly after, at age 12, Ro started their vocation as a peer professional, serving as a mentor in a program called PAL. Passionate about transforming life’s most challenging experiences into opportunities for healing and growth, Ro later earned a bachelor’s degree in social work and entered the profession with high hopes of using both their life experience and formal education to improve the system of care that Ro and many others have relied on.

It didn’t take long in the field for Ro to realize that the only way to truly "improve" an oppressive system and achieve real liberation is to:

• Dismantle it, not reform it
• Embrace peer support as a more aligned approach

This perspective made Ro incompatible with many social work positions, leading to struggles in their career until rediscovering peer support in 2019. After becoming trained in IPS, Ro finally found a place where they felt at home. They have thrived as a peer professional and have since become an experienced IPS trainer.

When Ro isn’t working as a peer professional, they can usually be found attempting to balance resisting oppression with nurturing their joie de vivre through activities like roller skating, dancing, making art, exploring local flora and fauna, loving on the nearest furry friend and sharing big belly laughs as often as possible.