An episode of Changing the Conversation podcast
John Dellick and host Rowan Willis-Gorman share what it is like to find the path from youth advocate to advocate for youth. This episode is part of a series featuring youth peer workers and recovery innovators discussing how to improve and uplift behavioral health systems for youth. This episode is part of a series featuring youth peer workers and recovery innovators discussing how to improve and uplift behavioral health systems for youth.
October 6, 2025
[Music]
Rowan Willis-Gorman, Host (00:05): Hello and welcome to Changing the Conversation. I’m your host, Rowan Willis-Gorman. I’m a Subject Matter Expert and Manager at C4 Innovations within our Center for Youth Well-being. Today’s conversation is part of a podcast series called The Next Generation of Recovery Leaders, where together we’ll learn from youth peer workers and recovery innovators across the country about how they’re utilizing creativity, grassroots organizing, and determination to uplift a behavioral health system for them. Through conversation and reflective storytelling, we’ll explore the current landscape of youth and young adult recovery systems, discuss how innovative youth voices have impacted those systems, and how harmful legislation is being met with passionate young advocates pushing towards a brighter future.
(00:49):
Our aim is to uplift and recognize the vibrant youth leaders across the country and to inspire the next generation of advocates. In this episode, we’ll be discussing a unique aspect of working as a youth peer or youth advocate, but we in the field call the Youth Advocate to Advocate for Youth Journey. Today, I have joining me, John Dellick. He is the co-executive director at the Resiliency Network in Ohio, and he is calling in from Cleveland, Ohio. Hi, John. It’s so amazing to have you join us today.
John Dellick, Guest (01:18): Hi, Rowan. Thank you for having me. It’s a pleasure to be here.
Rowan Willis-Gorman, Host (01:22): It’s so great to see you, John. It’s been a while. For those of you listening, John and I used to serve on the Youth MOVE National Board together, so we have been involved in lots of work together and been a part of many long board meetings. So John, today, we’re going to talk about that very unique concept in the youth peer world, the fact that you are constantly aware that you’re going to age out of your job, which isn’t something that really exists in other parts of the work. So to start us off, what got you involved in this work, John?
John (01:59): My journey into this work started with my own lived experience. Starting in seventh grade, I really struggled with mental illness and those struggles led to me being hospitalized and even incarcerated. I fell through just about all the gaps in the systems that were there to help and support me. What changed everything for me was working with the peer support specialist. For the first time in my life, I felt understood by someone who had walked a similar path. That moment planted a seed for me and I wanted to provide the same support and care for others. It was a lot of dark times, and one thing, my mom, who is my closest confidant would always tell me was, “John, you’ll be able to use these experiences to help somebody else.”
(02:54):
And I had no idea how true those words would become, but before I go any further, I’d like to pause and acknowledge the trailblazers who have came before me. The fact that I even had the chance to step into this work is because of the peer movement. A lot of people with lived experience have brought their voices and value to decision-making tables, and they’ve set the groundwork for me to be able to become a peer advocate and peer support specialist myself.
Rowan (03:26): That is so true, John. I was very lucky early in my career to work with some of the folks in Maryland who helped to create a system where I could not be hospitalized long term. Early in my career, I worked at On Our Own of Maryland with Mike Finkel, who was one of the original advocates to not only push for peer support, but also push for a mental health system that doesn’t criminalize and institutionalize people. And like you, John, I learned a lot from my mom. She, I think, passed along similar messages to me that my experiences could impact someone else.
(04:15):
And I think as much as she probably would’ve wished that I had gone to college and done all of the amazing degree-seeking things, I definitely thank her for where I am now and that very annoying drive to fix the things that I see wrong in the world. So both you and I, John, went through the process of learning how to become a youth advocate and a youth peer from people that had done it before us. What was that process of learning how to do the work like for you?
John (04:48): The process for me was invigorating. I was never much of an academic type myself. And once I started to attend different leadership and advocacy trainings, you mentioned we had both served on the Youth MOVE National Board, Youth MOVE National played a very pivotal role in helping me to develop and cultivate my leadership and advocacy skills. Getting to work with leaders like Johanna and learning to share my lived experience in a strategic way that helps to inform policy makers and decision makers was really what helped me to transmute a lot of the pain that I had experienced into a purpose. In many ways, I saw myself as a bridge translating the lived experiences into something that could influence practice and policy. Really, the story sharing brings the numbers to life. It gives emotion to all the data, context and it gives everybody a face. It’s not just statistics, it’s people’s lives that we’re talking about, and I feel like often that gets lost.
Rowan (06:04): That is just so true, John. As someone that’s a little bit of a policy nut, it’s been amazing to watch the hearts and minds of people change when they hear someone’s lived experience. And whether it be just go from changing a organization’s policy on the way they implement seclusion and restraint to a state or a national system, changing how a law or a code works, it’s such an amazing part of the work that you do. And as we talked about in our intro, part of being a youth advocate or a youth peer is that knowledge that you’ll not permanently be a youth, which I know for me was really hard to grapple with, to let go of something that I felt like I loved and had become such a pivotal part of who I was. How did you navigate that transition?
John (07:10): I first navigated it by hanging on to being as youth as long as I could, but the end of the road does come and it was not an easy transition for me, and being quite honest, I feel like I’m just coming out on the other side of that. This was really been one of the hardest transitions I’ve ever faced in my life, to be honest. Like you’ve mentioned, unlike many career paths, there really isn’t such a clear continuum for youth advocates. And for myself, I felt like I had devoted everything to this work, and then suddenly the road was coming to an end and I didn’t see what was going to come next. So it brought a lot of stress and even some loss to my own personal identity because I’d identified as a youth advocate for so long, the part of me that was a youth voice was fading, but the new part and advocate for youth really hadn’t fully emerged yet.
(08:12):
And so living in that in-between space was very hard and honestly scary. But I started to realize that this wasn’t just a personal challenge for me, it’s kind of a systematic gap. The field really doesn’t provide a roadmap for how youth advocates transition into adult leadership roles. Without that continuum, we do risk losing leaders who would carry the work forward. So starting to explore this for myself, I have been enrolled in college and completed an undergrad and grad degree in business. So working with my peers, we decided to start forming a new organization, and this is how the beginning of my transition from a youth advocate to an advocate for youth really started to emerge.
Rowan (09:04):That’s awesome, John. I remember when I left On Our Own as the Transitional Age Youth Outreach Program Manager, I felt like I was giving up a part of me. I did not go to business school like you did, and I did not create my own organization, but I did try very hard to ensure that I was giving that program over to someone that had a fresher spark than I did and had a bright insight to the work. And I feel like Kris Locus did such an amazing job with it, and I’m so happy that I was able to pass that role off onto someone else and pass that torch.
(09:54):
Generation next is a concept that we talk a lot about in the youth peer role that exactly like you said, not only do youth advocates need to have a space to go to, there also needs to be that looking back to see, okay, who’s going to take my space? Who’s coming up behind me? How do I make sure that not only the jobs, but the work still exists for them and how do I uplift them? It is that, how do you support them? So how do you see yourself as using your experiences to support those other youth that generation next?
John (10:34): It’s really important to start identifying youth that are ready to step into leadership roles and providing youth the opportunities to be able to successfully walk into these roles and feel supported in these roles. And that is really kind of what led to the creation of the Resiliency Network. And now, I want to make note that while on paper I am listed as co-executive director and co-founder, I really want to uplift that this was a group effort. Alumni, other youth that have aged out and current youth peers have shaped every piece of what the Resiliency Network is today, from the name to the mission and the vision, my contribution was bringing the business side thanks to my degrees in business, but the heart of all of this has been a collective and the Resiliency Network exists to really fill that continuum gap. It keeps alumni engaged while giving them a chance to mentor and support new youth advocates.
(11:48):
It also makes participation more accessible for young people who do face real barriers. For example, I’m sure, as you know, many system-involved youth can’t attend regular committee meetings held during the work day because they have other commitments like school or a job or transportation barriers. So we try to create alternative ways for them to get engaged, while also helping organizations and systems to think differently about what authentic youth engagement looks like. We also focus heavily on professionalizing the peer support workforce, preparing and supporting youth peers to succeed in the roles that they’re in, and helping them to think about what their lives will look like down the road and plan for the future, while also building organizational capacity to sustain these services long-term.
Rowan (12:46): That’s amazing, John. And if I’m remembering correctly, Ohio does have a youth peer certification, correct?
John (12:53): Yes, that’s correct.
Rowan (12:54): The emergence of those certifications has been so cool to watch throughout the country as exactly like you’re saying. We see people start to take youth peer work seriously and create these certifications and professionalize it, and you’re so right. There is kind of this question mark of “What do I do after I’m a youth peer?” I know both you and I, I think, went into the, what I call the administration side of it, the policy, the creating more opportunities for other people to make sure that it continues. One of the things that I tell the Youth Wellness Coaches, which are youth peers that work with me is that one of the big roles of being an advocate is being annoying and professionally being annoying.
(13:50):
And I like to think that by stepping into the administration side of it and helping to push for more policy change and more jobs, that I’m just continuing the work of being annoying professionally just in a different capacity. With that in mind, John, when you think of what the future of our field looks like, how do you envision the recovery and wellness field looking in the next 10 years?
John (14:20): Looking ahead, personally, I really want to see the youth peer support fully integrated into our mental and behavioral health systems. Not as a side program, not as something we fund if there’s extra money, but as a central and essential part of how we do this work. Initially, that means creating sustainable career pathways. So young people who step into peer support see a future for themselves, not just until they age out, a continuum that carries them from their first training through to leadership roles. I also want to address equality a little more directly- too many youth who need support the most, those in foster care, rural communities, justice-involved or facing housing insecurity are often the hardest to reach as we know. If our system doesn’t work for them, they don’t get the opportunities that they need. And finally, I hope we can continue to building a pipeline of leadership.
(15:27):
The youth who are sharing the stories today should become program directors, policy makers, and the system innovators of tomorrow. And that only happens if practitioners, people like many of the ones listening to this podcast, commit to valuing lived experience as an asset and not a liability. I wouldn’t be here without the trailblazers who fought for lived experience to be recognized in the first place. My hope is that over the next 10 years and so on that we continue to honor that legacy by continuing to open doors, build pathways, and make sure that the generation next of leaders doesn’t just have a seat at the table. They have the support to lead it.
Rowan (16:14): That was so beautifully put, John. I’m not sure I could say that better myself. I want to thank you so much for joining us today, John, it’s been such a delight to not only have you joined the conversation, but also to see you again.
John (16:27): Rowan, thank you so much for having me. And I was just absolutely touched when you reached out to me and invited me for this opportunity. It was so great to reconnect with you.
Rowan (16:37): And to our listeners, join us next time on Changing the Conversation.
Erika Simon, Producer (16:42): Visit C4innovates.com and follow us on LinkedIn and YouTube for more resources to grow your impact. Thank you for joining us. This episode was produced by Erika Simon and Christina Murphy. Our theme song was written and performed by Peter Hanlon. Join us next time on Changing the Conversation.