Arianna Mellinger

Justice Fellow

Arianna works for a local mental health authority and provides substance use counseling services in Longview, Texas. She has experienced the indirect impact of the criminal judicial system, with both parents having been incarcerated at separate times, and later directly incarcerated herself. Arianna graduated from Houston Community College with a certification as a chemical dependency counselor, and she previously worked for a local mental health authority in Houston, providing peer support services for The Mobile Crisis Outreach Team (MCOT). She has used her lived experience to connect with youth and adults as they struggle with barriers such as mental health concerns and chemical dependency struggles. She also holds a justice involved peer support specialist certification, a recovery peer support specialist certification, and LCDC-CI. Arianna is passionate about the intersection of youth and the carceral system and different alternatives to incarceration.

She is currently working on getting a peer support specialist consultation company off the ground while working full-time and attending school part-time. Arianna is the regional director of Lioness Justice Impacted Women’s Alliance for East Texas and is also a speaker on topics such as mental health, substance use/abuse, and the criminal justice system. Her goal is to start her own nonprofit for youth and young adults to have a place where they can access resources, education, therapy, and food. There is not a youth serving facility within 60 miles of where she resides, and she hopes to bring one to the area for the youth impacted by the justice system.