Just for Youth

Ricky believes that everyone matters and deserves to know it. This belief inspired him to create You Are Valued, which is a movement to value others that are being spread around the world. Roberts has the privilege to connect with 1000’s of youth and adults, on a yearly basis, in a wide variety of settings from maximum-security detention centers to national conferences to middle and high school classrooms.

As a young person, Roberts was exposed to and experienced abuse on many levels, which impacted his perception of love, and his self-worth. After being stabbed nine-times at the age of 17, he let go of his role as a victim and began to ask: how he can use everything he has experienced to impact others in a positive way.

Ricky takes everything he has learned, not only from his own healing process, but those he has had the privilege to help in theirs, and fuses it into his continued effort to best understand how he may be of service to others.

Today, Roberts inspires through his writings, speaking engagements, workshops, youth outreach, volunteer work, efforts with the YAV Movement, which has reached as far as Indonesia and Paris and continues to expand in the states, and his interaction with others in his daily living. Roberts is devoted to reaching people in a positive way wherever he may be.

Ricky enjoys surfing, skateboarding, mountain biking, reading, writing, nature, art, and traveling.

Roberts resides in St. Petersburg, FL. with his lovely wife and their two dogs.