Inclusive Peer Support

MJ Griego

Peer specialist and artist

Offerings

MJ offers a variety of consultation and facilitation

Conflict Mediation

Facilitating domestic and interpersonal conflicts to encourage change and growth

1-on-1 and Group Facilitation

4 years of experience facilitating groups like Healing from Difficult Experiences and Creative writing, as well as working 1-on-1 to foster growth and mental health recovery

Lived Experience

Uses lived experience as a transgender, neurodivergent, mixed-race and multi-ethnic disabled person to share skill and growth tactics

Supervisory and Training Experience

Has worked to directly train and support a staff team of peer facilitators, and coordinate advocacy through local peer support leadership

A Peer Approach

1

Equitable Care

Connection that values each person's lived experience and wisdom. Encouraging as equal a power dynamic as possible.

2

Questioning Power Systems

Peer Support avoids judgement, punitive logic, and paternalism as much as possible

3

Filling The Gaps

Creating spaces that honor the realities of oppression, and the nuance of our changing world

4

Practical Approaches

Encouraging the ideas that work, not what looks most respectable; creating trauma informed and harm reduction focused spaces that encouraging unmasking what society pressures us to be

Sociology Background

Technology-Oriented

Experience in Creating Accessible Spaces

Digital and Traditional Multimedia Arts

Small Business and Social Media Management

Cooperative Living Management

Multi-Disciplinary Skills

Program Experience

MJ has worked with these organizations and more in programs such as Cambridge Warming Center and The Hope Center

About MJ

MJ Griego(they/them) has a bachelor's degree from Tufts University with a major in Social justice oriented Sociology and minor in Chinese studies. They have also studied in ShangHai's DaTong International Academy and in ChangChun at NSLIY's summer intensive.

Their passions-turned-career are peer support and sociological learning. This field has led them to studying alternative crisis care, accessible mental health support, and using trauma healing for social change and equality.

After graduating, MJ has gained experience in 1-on-1 peer support, small business management, emergency shelter advocacy, peer group facilitation, and now directing a Recovery Learning Center in downtown Boston.

Art has always been integral to MJ's worldview. A self-taught artist putting in thousands of work hours over the past 20 years, MJ has used art as a therapeutic tool, advocacy tool, and a way to share their perspective as well as find joy in this world. MJ's work focuses on channelling the challenges of life into empowerment and using art to foster resilience.

They work primarily in traditional watercolor, digital painting, and now acrylic. They also have experience in illustration, design, fiber arts, and writing. They live with their chosen family of 7.

See MJ's Portfolio