Our Story

Our founder, Colleen Monroe, has known what it feels like to carry trauma, to make mistakes, to lose hope, and to wonder if anyone truly cared enough to stay. She has experienced healing not as a straight line, but as a journey filled with setbacks, resilience, strength, and people who made the choice to believe in her before she believed in herself.

Those moments changed everything.

Throughout years of working alongside people facing addiction, mental health challenges, homelessness, incarceration, grief, domestic violence, sexual assault, and crisis, one truth became impossible to ignore: people rarely heal because someone has all the answers. They heal because someone sits beside them without judgment and reminds them they still matter.

That became the foundation of Self Aspire.

We believe recovery belongs to everyone—not just those who are ready today, but also those who are still struggling. We believe hope should never have prerequisites. We believe harm reduction saves lives because every life is worth another tomorrow. We believe healing happens through connection, compassion, and community.

Self Aspire exists for the person who feels forgotten.

For the mother trying to rebuild.

For the father who thinks he has failed.

For the person leaving jail with nowhere to turn.

For the family wondering how to help.

For the individual who has been told "come back when you're ready."

We choose to meet people exactly where they are.

Our goal has never been to rescue people. Our goal is to walk beside them until they can see the strength that has been inside them all along.

Our name reflects what we hope every person discovers: that no matter what has happened, every individual has the ability to aspire toward something greater than yesterday.

This organization was built from lived experience, compassion, and the belief that everyone deserves someone who refuses to give up on them.

"As long as you are here today, there is still hope for tomorrow."