February 27, 2026

ISSUE 12

QUARTERLY NEWSLETTER

Inside NCVA: Intern Perspectives

This edition of our quarterly newsletter was created by our Communication and Outreach Interns, Aston Carreras and Princess Shembo! Over the past few weeks, they’ve connected with leaders from every department across our organization—asking thoughtful questions, gathering insights, and transforming those conversations into stories that highlight the heart of our work and the future of NCVA. Through their words, you’ll gain a fresh perspective on the people, purpose, and passion moving our mission forward.

Communication & Outreach Coordinator

Amplifying Lived Experience

Looking Ahead: The Future of NCVA

When asked where she sees North Carolina Voices Amplified in the next three to five years, Lynch described a future centered on growth and expansion.
“In the next three to five years, I see NCVA continuing to amplify youth and family voice,” she explained. A key focus will be expanding the youth and family peer support workforce and further elevating lived experience as a form of expertise within North Carolina’s behavioral health system. Lynch also anticipates that NCVA’s influence may extend beyond state lines. She sees the organization potentially supporting other states in developing infrastructure around youth and family peer support programs, positioning North Carolina as a leader in this emerging field.

Valuing Lived Experience

Beyond organizational growth, Lynch emphasized the broader systemic changes she hopes to see. One of her primary goals is for lived experience to be recognized as equally valuable as formal education and traditional work experience.

“In the broader system, I hope that lived experience becomes just as highly regarded and valuable as education and work experience to employers, education systems, and the behavioral health system,” she said.
Lynch acknowledged that peer support is still a relatively unknown career pathway. Despite its limitless possibilities, many people are unaware that sharing personal experiences and using their voice can lead to a meaningful and sustainable career.

“Using your voice and sharing your story is literally a way to build a career and a life,” she noted. “It’s something that I’ve done.”

Her perspective challenges traditional ideas about qualifications and expertise, urging institutions to reconsider how they define professional value.

The Role of Interns

Interns also play a critical role in NCVA’s mission. According to Lynch, they bring unique perspectives that enrich the organization’s work. “I feel like interns can make a meaningful impact by bringing their lived experience, background, and worldview,” she explained.

As a Communication and Outreach Coordinator, Lynch helps shape that impact by guiding interns through a semester-long learning experience. This process not only informs her work with NCVA but also provides students with firsthand exposure to nonprofit communications and advocacy.

Through mentorship and collaboration, interns gain practical skills while contributing to the organization’s broader mission of amplifying youth and family voices.

A Growing Movement

Kara Lynch’s vision reflects a larger cultural shift within behavioral health systems one that values authenticity, storytelling, and lived experience as legitimate forms of expertise. As NCVA continues to grow, its emphasis on youth and family voice and peer support may help redefine what leadership and professionalism look like in the years ahead. In elevating lived experience, Lynch and NCVA are not just building careers they are building a movement.

Where can I find a Peer Support Professional?

Associate Director of Research, Evaluation, and Grant Development

More Than Data Points

The Second Quarter

This quarter, success looked like wrapping up the development of a best practice guide for the system of care collaborative. Led by Chandrika and assisted by Sherrell, NCVA conducted interviews with collaborative meeting attendees. “One of the challenges with the system of care collaborative meetings are [that] there’s not enough youth or family voice attending,” she said. “We wanted to created a tool or instrument that kind of gives the best practices to increase that youth and family participation.”

Painting By The Numbers

Evaluation isn’t just about numbers, Sherrell combines both numbers and narratives to paint a fuller picture of the impact NCVA is having. Having this fuller picture also allows for more healthy family outcomes by ensuring that the good work continues. “It’s this feedback loop where their voices are heard, and the program continues to improve overall and everybody’s happy.” Sherrell is currently working to get grants that would allow NCVA to create a more integrative program to further improve effectiveness. Sherrell emphasizes the importance of co-creation with families and youth. “These outcomes are for you,” she said. “These are the outcomes that you wanted to see because these are the services that you needed.”

Sherrell is excited to see the NCVA team expand in the next quarter and further. This influx of new staff would help NCVA collect more data and reach more families in need of peer support.

What reach do our trainings have?

Family Training Coordinator

Empowering Families Through Training

Building Stronger Family Peer Leaders

Maddox serves as one of two Family Training Coordinators at NCVA. In this role, she provides training and technical assistance to family peers throughout North Carolina. Family peers are individuals with lived experience who support other families navigating behavioral health services.

“We provide training and technical assistance for family peers across North Carolina,” Maddox explained. “We coordinate and facilitate trainings to help family peers meet the educational requirements they need to become certified.”

Her work includes organizing training sessions, coordinating facilitators, and developing new materials. Currently, she is working on transforming a five-day Family Partner training into a digital workbook. The goal is to give family peers ongoing access to resources, interactive exercises, practice testing, and role-play scenarios.

“The day-to-day could look like a training class,” she said. “Even if we’re not facilitating it ourselves, we coordinate other people who are.”

Letting Families Lead the Conversation

When determining which topics families need most, Maddox emphasized a simple but powerful approach: listening.

“We ask them,” she said.

After each training, participants complete evaluations that measure how helpful the session was and suggest topics for future trainings. NCVA also aligns its offerings with national certification requirements to ensure family peers receive the specific hours and content needed to become certified.

By combining participant feedback with certification standards, NCVA ensures that its trainings remain both relevant and practical.

From Trainee to Trainer

Maddox’s perspective is deeply personal. Before becoming a coordinator, she worked as a Family Support Partner for another agency. In that role, she provided resources and guidance to families skills she gained directly from the trainings she now helps organize.

“I’m proof that training has empowered a family,” she said.

She explained that the knowledge gained from training helped her confidently support other families and eventually grow into her current leadership position. The trainings not only provide information but also teach family peers how to communicate effectively what to say, what not to say, and how to respect the unique experiences of each family.

“You may have had one experience, but another family might see it completely differently,” Maddox noted. Training prepares peers to approach each situation with empathy and awareness.

Overcoming Barriers to Participation

Maddox acknowledged that families sometimes face barriers to participating in trainings. These barriers can include time constraints, work schedules, childcare responsibilities, transportation challenges, or simply not knowing the opportunity exists.

To reduce these barriers, NCVA works to offer flexible options such as virtual trainings, accessible materials, and coordinated support. By creating inclusive learning environments and offering resources in multiple formats, the organization helps ensure families can engage regardless of their circumstances.

Creating Lasting Impact

Through her work, Kimberly Maddox helps transform lived experience into professional expertise. By equipping family peers with training, knowledge, and confidence, she strengthens not only individual families but the broader behavioral health system in North Carolina.

Her journey from family peer to training coordinator demonstrates the power of education, mentorship, and voice. At its core, her work reflects a simple but meaningful mission: when families are empowered, communities grow stronger.

How many people have we we trained?

Youth Training Coordinator

Nurturing The Next Generation

Expanding Nationwide

This quarter there has been notable growth in the youth support department, statewide as well as on the national scale. Kyle will be travelling to various sites around the country with the express purpose of showing what exactly it is that we do here at NCVA. Having spoken at events in collaboration with organizations like Say So, an advocacy organization centered around children in and out of the foster care system. “We’re really excited to see the growth of the work, he said. More and more organizations are hiring youth support partners, recognizing the need for such work."

Learning from Experience

Kyle came to recognize the need for youth support through his own life experiences. “I was a young person with mental and behavioral challenges,” Kyle said. These experiences make the mission personal. Kyle has been working with advocacy groups on behalf of youth like himself for over a decade. “Because I have that lived experience learning how to advocate for myself, a lot of the training that we develop is based on these experiences.” He highlights the importance of giving youth a seat at the table to have their voice heard and to be empowered. This is in contrast with traditional methods of youth support, where young people often feel disconnected from choices made concerning their lives. “There’s this misconception that young people are just kind of disassociated. But, I think in reality they’re actually trying to learn more about how we can improve the state of the world so that young people don’t have to go through those similar challenges.”

Fostering Connections through Quarter 2 NCVA Trainings

Collaboration Coordinator

Leading With Lived Experience

A Role Rooted in Personal Experience

Brown described her position as a lived experience role, meaning her expertise comes directly from being a caregiver of a child with social, emotional, mental health, or intellectual and developmental IDD diagnoses.
"I am a nationally certified family partner, Brown explained. That means I am a caregiver of a child or children who has some type of social, emotional, mental, or IDD diagnosis."

Unlike traditional clinical roles, Brown’s work is grounded in firsthand understanding. She knows what it feels like to navigate systems, advocate for services, and support a child with complex needs because she has lived it herself.

Supporting Families Across North Carolina

In her current position, Brown continues to work directly with families while also contributing to broader system support. As a family partner, she offers guidance, resources, and encouragement to caregivers who may feel overwhelmed or unsure where to begin.
Her role involves helping families understand available services, advocating for appropriate support, and walking alongside them as they navigate challenges. Because she shares similar lived experiences, families often feel more comfortable opening up and trusting her guidance.
This peer based approach builds connection and credibility in ways that traditional service models sometimes cannot.

The Power of Peer Support

Brown’s certification as a family partner reflects the growing recognition that lived experience is a valuable and necessary form of expertise. Peer support roles like hers help bridge gaps between families and formal systems.

By combining professional training with personal insight, Brown embodies the mission of NCVA amplifying family voices and strengthening the behavioral health system through authentic advocacy.

Her work highlights a powerful truth. Sometimes the most meaningful support comes from someone who has truly been there.

Program Manager

Understanding the Totality of Need

What is Family Support?

To Willow, family support comes down to a sense that there is someone out there who can understand you. Someone who understands how to navigate all the systems and can support you through it. This is why she employs a listening to understand technique, to meet people where they are. It’s about addressing the totality of the need. Success for a family after receiving family peer support may look like development of advocacy skills or action plans that guarantee success in multiple aspects of a family’s life.

More Hands On Deck

Success for Willow this past quarter meant expanding the family peer support sphere. “We really try to work on multiple levels. One of the things that we do a lot of work on is just awareness.” This past quarter Willow has worked hard building connections with other organizations in the state with similar objectives. Along with these networking endeavors, Willow is also looking to expand the NCVA, ideally to double the staff numbers. This would be advantageous for the organization because a bigger team means that more meaningful work can be done, which is paramount. “It’ll let us develop more trainings,” Willow said, “We’ll have more staff across North Carolina who will be able to support local communities better.” Having secured funding for expansion efforts, NCVA is actively looking to create and fill new positions.

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