Christopher Araujo
After 18 years in the United States Army, Christopher Araujo’s lived experience drives his passion to aid veterans and their families. At the Meadows Institute, his work centers on meeting the mental health needs of both veterans and law enforcement individuals.
Christopher joined the Meadows Institute in 2019 as the Project Coordinator of Veterans Initiatives and was quickly promoted to Project Manager. He plays a critical role in the Meadows Institute’s efforts to implement improvements in first responder systems that improve crisis response for people with mental illness. Christopher also provides grant administration support to North Texas Metrocare’s Texas Veterans + Family Alliance (TV+FA) grant program, which was created to expand the availability and enhance delivery of mental health services and treatments for veterans and their families. Additionally, he has facilitated a series of virtual veteran peer support and veteran mental health services conversations with veteran service organizations throughout Texas.
While in the United States Army, Christopher was an Indirect Fire Infantryman and served through numerous overseas deployments in support of combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In 2013, after being medically discharged, Christopher worked for the Military Veteran Peer Network as the Austin / Travis County coordinator, managing a team of volunteers responsible for connecting veterans to resources. He also assisted the State Veteran Mental Health Office on a variety of projects that were integral in improving the mental health of Texas veterans. During his time there, Christopher was frequently an expert witness for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and trauma-affected veterans in criminal trials for the State of Texas. Beginning in 2017, Christopher was Easterseals Central Texas’ Director of Community and Veteran Services, where he helped develop and implement a multi-agency collaboration to improve access to a variety of resources for veterans and their family members.
