Meet our team

Adrián Perez Ara

Adrián is the Project and Lived Experience Network Coordinator for Orygen Global's Wellcome-funded Community of Practice on psychosocial interventions for young people.

In this role, Adrián leads coordination of the Network's lived experience engagement activities, supporting young people and caregivers to contribute meaningfully to the development and implementation of psychosocial interventions across diverse global contexts.

Adrián brings over a decade of direct practice experience in youth mental health and addiction, including five years with the Government of Nunavut's territorial mental health team in Iqaluit, Arctic Canada. There, they designed and facilitated territory-wide youth mental health consultations across Nunavut's three regions and contributed to the program development of Aqqusariaq, Nunavut’s first Inuit-led addictions and trauma treatment centre, including its inpatient, outpatient and continuing care models. Their work in Nunavut also included developing inclusive programming for queer and gender-diverse youth.

Adrián holds a Master's in Social Work as a Human Rights Profession from Alice Salomon Hochschule in Berlin and an undergraduate degree in Psychology from the University of British Columbia. Their practice is grounded in human rights, decolonial and lived experience frameworks.