Collaborative Support Programs of New Jersey, Freehold, New Jersey, United States: Chelsea Triano, Marketing Coordinator

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Chelsea joined CSPNJ in 2021 and serves as a one-person marketing/communications team at the statewide nonprofit, which employs over 330 staff and serves thousands of New Jerseyans. Her personal lived experience with mental health motivates her to increase accessibility and awareness of the life-changing, free-of-charge peer services that CSPNJ provides, beginning her career at the agency working on the front line in peer wellness respite services. After advancing into her role as CSPNJ’s first marketing coordinator in November 2022, Chelsea began to grow CSPNJ’s online presence to create greater accessibility to services, increasing the Facebook following by 200% and average newsletter engagements by 125%. She also gracefully took on the unexpected role of event coordinator, taking the lead on organizing annual events such as an employee appreciation event and statewide community festival for persons living with mental health and/or co-occurring substance use challenges. She's heavily involved in regional events for persons served, staying true to her roots as a frontline staff person, like organizing field trips and day activities for individuals involved in CSPNJ’s supportive housing programs. In addition, Chelsea has become a leading hand in internal affairs of facilitating strategic planning meetings and agency-wide in-services to promote professional development.

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With frontline staff experience, Chelsea values community partners for increasing eligible service recipient referrals. She’s maintained/established over 30 community partnerships to ensure service recipients receive the support they need in all areas of health/wellness. She’s built an active online community via social media and kickstarting monthly newsletters.  

Chelsea came into her role while CSPNJ struggled to capture greater audiences through optimizing the use of its website, social media, and in-person voice. She quickly offered solutions: adding an accessibility tool to the website, building a dictionary of person-centered and aligned language, and set the precedence of where CSPNJ’s values best aligned at conferences and other events. CSPNJ has been invited to attend six in-person community events and conferences monthly by honorable organizations and state service providers since these efforts have been made. 

Chelsea launched CSPNJ’s first online apparel store to increase ongoing fundraising and community advertising, and since then there have been over 120 sales that have increased conversations about CSPNJ’s services in day-to-day places. In 2023 and 2024, Chelsea was the lead of our annual Fall Fest, a statewide community event for individuals living w/mental health and/or substance use challenges. Using innovation through researching accommodative venues and cost-effective amenities, these events both brought in over 350 attendees while saving the agency over $4,000 in additional fees that have been faced in the past. In 2023, Chelsea was a team head for the agency’s Annual Gala, raising over $170,000 towards initiatives for enhanced financial literacy program and wellness services.

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CSPNJ has been busy in early years providing services on the frontline and found themselves in a humble and quiet position. As CSPNJ’s first marketing coordinator and as a one-person team responsible for showcasing the incredible work of over 330 employees and thousands served, Chelsea entered her role in unique circumstances. Over the past two years, she has not only uncovered decades of celebratory events and achievements in the field that never found their way on the front page, but has continued to foster spaces and encouragement for current life-changing services and projects that CSPNJ is leading. Being mindful of budget and bringing innovative approaches to branding to preserve funds for direct service recipient use (like hand-making staff volunteer shirts for a statewide LGBTQIA+ marketing event to redistribute those funds for community member’s needs) is just one way that Chelsea’s approach to marketing CSPNJ is unlike others. Chelsea has been able to magnify CSPNJ’s name and reputation in news outlets, community resource directories, and mental health partners with force.  

Chelsea understands the importance of stepping up and stepping in whenever there is a chance to amplify CSPNJ’s mission and growth of services provided and is often seen supporting staff with projects during off hours or through weekends when events are scheduled outside of her working hours. 

In addition to our agency newsletter, Chelsea is well known by staff at the agency, as she distributes internal communications about advocacy, community events and professional development opportunities on a nearly weekly basis. 

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Increasing CSPNJ’s visibility, Chelsea developed CSPNJ’s first toolkit for Mental Health Awareness Month (and toolkits for other awareness months), receiving recognition from federally funded mental health and social service providers, alongside other regional 501(c)3s and 501(c)4s. Chelsea utilized surveys of persons served and peer staff to identify what individuals wanted/needed, then used the feedback to build personalizable agendas featuring printable activities, online weekly discussions, and a peer story wall on CSPNJ’s MHAM webpage.  

In November 2024, the online store host Bonfire featured apparel designed by a peer staff in their 2024 Giving Tuesday gift guide, nominated on Chelsea’s behalf to empower her colleagues’ passions and self-care techniques. This event increased sales by 25% and led to more staff inquiring about showcasing both service recipient and their own work in the store. Chelsea leans into the strengths of the people in CSPNJ’s community to amplify the peer voice, a part of our agency’s mission in service.  

As a peer herself, Chelsea says that, “mental health care should be representative, accessible and reliable – if we don't work to have our agency be findable, we’re doing a great disservice to those who are in need but don’t yet know where to turn to. My passion for taking on this role comes from knowing how different my lived experience could have been if I had known about CSPNJ when I was in distress, and how easy it can be to help and prevent others from dealing with their own mental health alone.”