Calla Peltier-Olson
Community Placement & Practicum Education Coordinator
Biography:
Calla Peltier-Olson is a euro-descendent born and raised on Wiyot, Yurok, and Hupa lands. A long-time lived-experience advocate and community organizer, she joined the Humboldt County Transition-Age Youth Collaboration [HCTAYC] in 2010 at the age of 19 and spent nearly 15 years empowering young people to transform the homelessness, behavioral health, juvenile justice, and foster care systems. Having served as a youth advisory board member before becoming a staff person, she used her lived experience to help forge a pathway for peer professionals in Humboldt County, co-create the TAY Center, educate youth serving professionals on best practices, secure policy and legislative wins, and train generations of young leaders.
Calla was honored by SAMHSA at the 2014 & 2015 National Children’s Mental Health Awareness Day events as a leader in the field of peer support, named Creative Advocate of the Year by Young Minds Advocacy in 2018, was one of the recipients of the Praed Foundation’s inaugural TCOM Youth Advocate Award in 2019, and named “Hero of the Redwoods” by the Times Standard in 2025. Calla has served as a subject matter expert for various initiatives and agencies such as CalMHSA, #Out4MentalHealth, CIBHS, and SAMHSA, and in leadership positions on various boards and committees at a federal, state, and local level.
Graduating in 2023 with an MSW from Cal Poly Humboldt, she was chosen as a College of Professional Studies Scholar for her research on social worker sustainability, relational ethics, and peer support. She left her position as HCTAYC’s Lead Organizer in 2025 to help ensure future generations of social workers live into the ethics and responsibilities of relational, transformative practice, and are supported to cultivate sustainability and reciprocity in their practicum education.
