Emergency Mental Health and Crisis Services – Are They LGBTQ Affirmative?

thequeercommons — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 03:46:32 +0000

While resources do exist for those experiencing crises and contemplating taking their own life, many do not reach out for fear of how they might be treated by responders such as hotline personnel, EMS teams, police officers and mental health care professionals. Following the report of the suicide of Joseph Jefferson, we contacted Lifenet, the toll-free crisis hotline for NYC residents that is operated by the Mental Health Association of New York City. According to Lifenet, they are now referring anyone who expresses suicidal ideation and identifies themselves as LGBTQ to the Trevor Project, following a safety assessment. If someone is assessed and found to be a danger to themselves, Lifenet stages an intervention through one of the 23 mobile crisis teams and Emergency Medical Services (EMS) with which they have formal linkages; what happens after that point would be out of the Lifenet operator’s hands… in other words, there is no guarantee that an LGBTQ caller would receive sensitive or affirmative care, although, according to Lifenet, it is their intention to provide it.

With the recent increased attention given to LGBTQ young people who contemplate and commit suicide and the lack of affirmative, culturally competent resources available, it seems essential that we commit to increasing our awareness of the warning signs of suicide and work to hold service providers accountable for the quality of care they provide to our community.

Sign-on For Better Data Collection for Trans Youth

thequeercommons — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 05:19:00 +0000

The Queer Commons has signed on to this letter addressed to the CDC and Obama Administration, and we hope that representatives from your organizational affiliates will do the same. Better data collection is absolutely essential if we are to ever appropriately serve the needs of trans and gender non-conforming youth.

Community wellness will be greatly increased if we can ensure better educational opportunities, improved mental health and lowered suicide risk, decrease drug and alcohol abuse as a means of self-medication, and improve access to trans-affirmative health resources.

Dear Colleagues at the Local, State and National Level,

I’d like to encourage you to join us on this very important sign-on letter. In an effort to improve national data collection regarding LGBT students, several national organizations and state partners have been advocating at both the federal and state level for inclusion of questions relating to sexual orientation and gender identity on the Youth Risk Behavior Survey. This survey in conducted biannually in states across the country to measure the health and risk behavior of students. While there are currently 2 questions relating to sexual orientation available as optional questions for adoption by states, there are no approved questions that can be used to identify transgender students. Therefore, we have drafted a sign-on letter urging the CDC and Obama Administration to allocate resources to work with students, researchers, and advocates to develop a question that can be used to identify transgender students.

We would like to invite national, state, and local organizations to sign-on to the attached letter by sending an email to Dave Reynolds at the Trevor Project (Dave.Reynolds@TheTrevorProject.org). Our deadline for sign-on is November 15th. For further information, we have attached an FAQ regarding this project. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact Dave via email or his direct line, 310.271.8845 x258.

Please distribute this email widely.

Stay well,

Dave

Dave Reynolds, MPH, CPH
Sr. Public Policy and Research Manager / The Trevor Project<http://bit.ly/TheTrevorProject>
310.271.8845 x258