Meet the Team
Our team's strength lies in its diversity. Different cities, different histories, and different paths that have led them to today. What we all share, however, is a single mission: delivering life-changing outcomes for individuals living with serious mental illnesses, and the conviction that no one should have to navigate those things alone.
Every firsthand Guide is dually certified as a peer specialist and a community health worker. We equip them with the training and support they need to show up for their neighbors in whatever way is needed, be it emotionally, medically, or practically.
You don't have to have it all figured out to do this work. Our Guides thrive because of who they are and where they've been, not in spite of it.
OUR TEAM
Alexia
Recruiting
Alexia spent eight years working in a dementia unit and later joined a Suboxone clinic. Across both roles, she found herself drawn less to the tasks and more to the moments in between them.
Felix
Manager, Community Operations
Felix believes that success in this work comes from making it about the individuals being served, and about the colleagues showing up alongside you.
Patrick
VP of Peer Services
Patrick lives with bipolar disorder, and his path to where he is now wasn't a straight one.
Navi
Health Guide
For Navi, the peer support model is what makes firsthand different. She watches every day as her teammates with lived experience of serious mental illness and/or substance use disorder build trust with individuals in ways no clinical credential can.
Abbie
Firsthand Guide
Abbie knows what it feels like to wonder if life will ever look different. Walking alongside others as they ask that same question is exactly where she wants to be.