An episode of Changing the Conversation podcast
Natalia Muñoz and Ash Wheeler share insights about youth peer support and mentorship with host Rowan Willis-Gorman. Mentorship is ingrained in most peer spaces, but is uniquely important in youth and near-age peer support, existing in the relationships between youth peer workers and the youth they serve and between youth peer workers as they develop their careers and hone their practice. 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.
September 22, 2025
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Rowan Willis-Gorman, Host (00:05): Hello and welcome to Changing the Conversation. I’m your host, Rowan Willis-Gorman, and I’m calling in from my home studio in Baltimore, Maryland with my dog, Po. 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 across the country, discuss how innovative youth voices have impacted those systems, and how harmful legislation is being met with passionate youth advocates pushing towards a brighter future.
(00:54):
Our aim is to uplift and recognize the vibrant youth leaders across the country, and to inspire the next generation of advocates. Today, I have two guests with me, Natalia Muñoz and Ash Wheeler. Natalia is calling in from Boston, and she’s a Lead Youth Wellness Coach at C4 Innovations. Hi, Natalia. It’s great to have you here with us.
Natalia Muñoz, Guest (01:16): Hi, Rowan. I’m so happy to be here. Thank you for having me.
Rowan (01:20): And Ash, who is also a Youth Wellness Coach at C4 Innovations, is calling in from Manchester, New Hampshire. Hi, Ash.
Ash Wheeler, Guest (01:28): Hi, Rowan. Thanks so much for having me.
Rowan (01:30): To start off our conversation, I’d love to dive in a little bit around our topic of the day, mentorship, which is a huge aspect that drives forward a lot of youth peer work and youth work across the country. So what does mentorship mean to you, Natalia?
Natalia (01:51): I think can be very flexible, right? I think mentorship to me is all about collaboration and respecting each person’s voice in order to help another individual develop skills, develop their sense of self and who they are, and really having conversations. A big part of mentorship is communication and trying to facilitate those conversations with an individual in order to help them better themselves in any way, shape or form.
Rowan (02:27): Ash, what about you?
Ash (02:29): I see mentorship as a sort of scaffolding, as a support that will help a younger or someone who just doesn’t have as much experience in the particular field that you’re in, help support and uplift them to become a better, more well-rounded person, better at their role or in the environment they’re in or whatever it may be. And I think that is, like Natalia said, really only achieved through rapport building, open and honest communication, and that partnership and back and forth that is key to that relationship, I think.
Rowan (03:10): That was so well put and it’s amazing to hear both of you kind of talk about how you define mentorship. It was I think one of the things that made me fall in love with the youth peer role when I started working in the field over 12 years ago, which makes me feel very old. But I want to hit on something that you’re both Youth Wellness Coaches at C4 Innovations, and Natalia, you’ve been a Youth Wellness Coach for about a year and a half now. Can you tell us what a Youth Wellness Coach is?
Natalia (03:41): I get this question a lot just considering it’s a new role in the behavioral health field. So I like to describe it as a peer mentorship role. It’s really the core of what it is, right? It is non-clinical services, so I am not a clinician, and it’s an emphasis on being a peer mentor to youth specifically. I serve high schools primarily, however, I have worked in middle schools, and it’s about meeting high schoolers and middle schoolers where they’re at and conducting either sessions with them, any types of outside programming that we might offer that is separate from clinicians, but also working collaboratively with clinicians and having this alternative to clinical work. So we really focus on Tier 2 behavioral health interventions.
Rowan (04:30): And Natalia, can you explain what a Tier 2 behavioral health intervention is?
Natalia (04:35):
Tier 2 interventions are above Tier 1. Tier 1 is the universal interventions that are for every youth, any student that might be in need of services. Tier 2 is right above that, so it’s going to be targeted and specific for that youth. A lot of this is meant to prevent students from needing Tier 3 intervention services. So this is the most intensive intervention services. So what we’re doing is trying to prevent that being a necessity. So targeting behavior, academics, providing them with the ability to self-monitor and self-regulate their emotions. So really working on skill building, so they’re able to help themselves self-regulate basically, and to prevent any accelerated progress of any types of behavioral health concerns that they might have brought to the table.
Rowan (05:33): Awesome. Thank you, Natalia. And I think that’s such a great example of, I’m going to go on a little youth peer support pitch for a minute, about how youth peer work being done by youth peers across the country and Youth Wellness Coaches in Massachusetts is a great way to keep youth receiving support in their communities instead of being pushed towards out-of-community placements like in a hospital or a residential center that takes them away from their support system. So that’s one of the beautiful things about youth peer work is that it’s entirely focused, not entirely, but hopefully is focused on supporting youth in their community with their entire support system and kind of building upon that like a scaffolding system like Ash talked about earlier. Beautiful. Okay. So you’re both Youth Wellness Coaches and we’ve defined how you view mentorship and what a Youth Wellness Coach is. So how do you think that mentorship fits into your roles as Youth Wellness Coaches? Natalia, do you want to start us off?
Natalia (06:41): Mentorship is the key to the core, really, to the work that I do with youth. It’s providing that near-age peer model and being somebody who the youth can look towards for support, understanding, and really providing a non-judgmental environment. I think that’s the core of mentorship is really providing that one-on-one support where it doesn’t feel like this is the boss of me or somebody who is going to get me into any types of trouble. And we find those are barriers with high school students. Often there’s apprehension, right? Are you going to get me in trouble for what I’m about to say to you? And we are trying to minimize that fear by offering a supportive environment, somebody who may present with lived experience or know somebody with lived experience and is able to provide that honest and communicative and transparent space, allowing that person to truly be able to share who they are and be able to identify where they want to be. And being able to assist them and reaching those goals that they have set for themselves.
Rowan (07:54): That’s such a beautiful explanation, Natalia, and I love hearing anyone doing youth peer work talk about the way that mentorship fits into their role. Now, Ash, you’re one of our newer Youth Wellness Coaches, so how do you think mentorship is going to fit into your role once you get into the schools?
Ash (08:14): Yeah, like you said, I’m newer to the role. I haven’t had an opportunity to be in a school yet, so I don’t have the real lived experience like Natalia does of what that looks like in practice. But I think I have a really positive outlook on what that will look like based on what Natalia and other lead wellness coaches have told me about. The part that I really resonated with about what Natalia said was having a mentor who is separate from an authority figure of sorts. For example, my background is in biotech. I worked in biotech for four years before transitioning into this role. In biotech, it is not standard for there to be a mentor that is separate from your boss.
(08:58):
I was very grateful and very lucky when I was in biotech to have fantastic bosses that doubled as mentors for me, but I know that that’s not always the case. So this was a big shift for me coming into this role and now having somebody who is separate from my boss who I can have a little bit more honest conversations with and there isn’t any tie to my performance, and kind of what Natalia had said, I feel like mimics what the high schoolers are feeling, of hesitance to say anything that might get them in trouble or might reflect poorly on them. So I think that trust and that removal from an authority figure or a position of power is key to the mentorship model.
Rowan (09:47): Definitely, Ash. I think, like you, I’ve never worked in a role where a mentor outside of my boss was a normal thing, but I was very lucky when I started my first youth peer role to find a mentor out in the community that worked for a different organization. She would later become my boss because I was so enamored in working with her that I went to join the organization that she worked for. But that relationship was so pivotal for me that I think it really helped me fall in love with this work, and I’m so glad that you’re able to have that mentor outside of your boss at C4 to get all the support that you need. Awesome.
(10:35):
So kind of like Ash just introduced, there are layers to mentorship, and many different mentorship relationships that might exist when you’re doing youth peer work. How does this kind of peer-to-peer mentorship that’s happening with the Lead Youth Wellness Coaches and the newer Youth Wellness Coaches differ from the mentorship that you’re providing youth? Natalia, I think you have a couple of coaches that you’re currently mentoring. Can you tell us how that differs from what you’re providing to the youth you’re working with in schools?
Natalia (11:09): It’s completely different. So there are similarities. I wouldn’t say it’s completely different, but this is newer for me to step into a mentorship role, at least at C4’s level, and mentoring newer coaches has been a new process for me, over the last few months I’ve been able to meet weekly, and it differs at least from my supervisions with my supervisor. It’s a very different conversational feel. So those are similarities that I have with the youth that I’m working with. When I’m meeting with youth, it’s very conversational and trying to get to know them better, which is what I’m doing with my colleagues, but I’m also trying to figure out where they might need support, right?
(11:51):
It’s the same types of environments that I might have with youth, but it presents itself a little bit differently just because my colleagues have prior work experience and come in with these prior notions, I guess, of workplaces and what that looks like. And being two adults is very different than being, a near-age peer versus a 15-year-old in my office is very different to adults speaking about their roles, right? Because we’re both sharing the same role and will be working in schools and those things are going to be similar. Not the exact same, but similar.
(12:25):
So I think mentoring my colleagues has gone very well just because I’m taking those skills that I’ve learned of mentoring students into this role and adapting it and changing things that need to be changed along the way just because we’re two adults talking. They’re not going to have random outbursts as some teenagers might have with me, right, just saying, I don’t know, any pop culture reference or things like that. It’s a little bit different, but it’s been really nice being able to answer people’s questions and the question of: “What is it like going into schools? How do I go about this? What if this happens?”
(12:59):
I get those questions a lot, and being able to be like, “Yeah, that has also happened. In my experience, this has happened, or that hasn’t quite happened yet in my role. Let’s brainstorm some ways on how we would go about it”, and maybe even just having that note-taking down. So I think in some ways, it does overlap a little bit, but it is different just because there are high schoolers and then these are colleagues that are coming in with notions of their jobs. It’s very different environments from a school environment.
Rowan (13:30): Definitely. That’s a great explanation, Natalia. I’m so grateful that we’ve reached a point in this project that we’re fully able to provide that layered support, thinking at the beginning of the project where the guidance and support that the Youth Wellness Coaches were getting were from folks who, like myself, had provided youth peer support in various settings, but never in this exact specific way that y’all are. To have you be able to now fill that role and provide support and mentorship and guidance that is, you can exactly answer what’s going to happen when you’re doing a screening with a student in a library at this exact school, because you’ve done it. So being able to watch this growth and see this kind of natural mentorship progression is really cool to watch. Ash, when you think of the mentorship that you’re going to be providing in the schools, what do you think are some ideal outcomes that you want with the young people that you’re going to be supporting?
Ash (14:41): I think the best case scenario for any service work would be that eventually it becomes obsolete. Students would eventually not need that support. I would love if eventually they were able to build those protective factors and build those social supports and the community supports independently. Obviously, we are a far ways away from that and that may never in fact be possible. In the short term and in something that I feel like is achievable, my goal is I just want to be a safe adult for these youth. Really that is the number one priority for me. I want to be someone who is not in a position of power, does not hold any authority over them, and someone that they can turn to and be honest with. Truly the biggest ideal outcome for me is honesty.
Rowan (15:41): That is such a great goal, Ash, and I think it’s probably the goal of most people that are doing youth work, especially with that mindset that it can sometimes be hard to build trust and rapport with a young person, particularly if they’re in a challenging part of their life or if they’ve experienced any kind of trauma. And I’m going to put my “data hat” on for just a tiny second. We know that especially for young people within under-supported and marginalized communities like LGBTQ youth, having a supportive adult outside of your home can be life-changing in the sense that it can quite literally save your life.
(16:31):
And I’m so grateful that we have this project and that we have the opportunity and ability to place near-age peers like yourself, Ash, and like you, Natalia and like the rest of the team in schools to be that supportive adult for so many students across the state of Massachusetts. So, with all of that in mind, I want you to, both of you, to think forward 10 years in the future, which I know is a long time. Even I think have a hard time thinking that far ahead. But when you envision the recovery and wellness system in 10 years, what do you hope to see? Ash?
Ash (17:20): I think, like I alluded to earlier, ideally the job would be obsolete. In the case that that is not reasonable or achievable within 10 years or ever, I think continuing to develop these mentorship relationships with near-age peers, building that out as a robust and complex system that involves more than just the schools, having mentorship opportunities in all of the protective factors for the youth. So expanding into sports, into theater, into academic decathlons or whatever it may be. The other community supports I think are a great opportunity for this project or this idea to expand.
Natalia (18:07): I really like those points, Ash. I was thinking the same thing. So in 10 years’ time, I would love for near-age peer work to be, have a seat at the table. Not just have a seat at the table, but lead conversations and to be a respected part of behavioral health. And I think we meet challenges and we meet barriers because there has only been one way of doing things for so long. But slowly but surely, we’re seeing the benefit of near-age peer mentorship and we’re making those strides actively right now literally. I’d like to call it the Renaissance of near-age peer mentorship. We’re in this push forward for changing that narrative and really putting an emphasis on harm reduction and mentorship, and not everybody needs to have a doctorate in order to provide services. There are students that might not need Tier 3 interventions, like I was saying before. We can provide them the skills before they need more intensive approaches, and in 10 years’ time, I would love to see us be able to work collaboratively with old systems and integrating new systems like near-age peer mentorship.
Rowan (19:20): Those were both such amazing answers. Ash, what inspires you or drives you to work in the wellness and recovery field?
Ash (19:30): A lot of things honestly. Both my lived and living experience with substances, as well as my queer identity. Those two things are intimately related and I know that that’s the case for a lot of queer youth across the country as well as in Massachusetts and in the schools that we’re serving. I think now is as great a time as ever to start this work. I think now is when more and more dangerous legislation is becoming part of our everyday, and I think that anything and everything that we can do as individuals to help offset that and empower future generations, I think it’s my duty and my responsibility to do that.
Rowan (20:20): Thank you for sharing that, Ash. That is such an amazing driver to be in this work, and I think one that is shared by many. Natalia, what about you?
Natalia (20:29): Yeah, for me, I’ve always said I do this work because I didn’t have somebody in the building of my school or in my community that I was able to speak to. And a lot of my struggles happened in my youth, happened in high school, happened in middle school, and I didn’t have a safe adult to speak to, as Ash was saying before, right? It’s all about having that comfort and safety. And what drives me, as somebody who’s been four years in recovery now from substance use, I really cherish the work I do. It keeps me accountable. It keeps the youth that I serve accountable. I mean, even with the schools that I service, I come from very similar communities, so I’m Hispanic, and the communities that I serve are primarily Hispanic. And oftentimes, there’s not even a single person in the building that can have candid conversations about behavioral health in their native language. So for me, a big driving factor is being that person then that can even just have the conversation, but can also understand them from a cultural perspective.
Rowan (21:35): Thank you for sharing that, Natalia. And I think you touch on a piece which is so incredibly important, not just in youth peer work, but in the wellness and recovery system as a whole, that representation truly does matter. I can only imagine how different my life would’ve been if growing up, I had a queer adult that was near-age peer to interact with. Not that I didn’t love and enjoy my what I called lesbian mothers, but they were well into their fifties, and it did give me an amazing representation of, “Okay, I can grow up and get old and succeed”. But there was this large gap of what happens before I turned 50 that it would’ve been great to have that representation exist. And I’m so glad that both of you get to be representative of a thriving future for some young person in the schools that you’re in. It was so great to have both of you join us today. Natalia, thank you so much for your time today.
Natalia (22:50): Thank you so much for having me, Rowan.
Rowan (22:52): And Ash, it was great to have you join us.
Ash (22:55): Thanks so much, rowan. It was a fantastic conversation.
Rowan (22:58): And to our listeners, join us next time on Changing the Conversation.
Erika Simon, Producer (23:03): 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.
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