Intro and backgroup slides

The video clip highlights the importance of mental health for LGBTQ+ teens in America. Mental health issues have become a major problem, especially during the pandemic. Disturbingly, almost half of LGBTQ+ teens in Colorado have attempted or considered suicide, with high rates of anxiety and depression. Many LGBTQ+ youth struggle to access mental health care due to fear, lack of support, affordability, and skepticism about its effectiveness. Discrimination and harassment against LGBTQ+ teens are prevalent, impacting their well-being. The presentation aims to empower LGBTQ+ students by leveraging existing assets and community support. It suggests creating a GSA club and providing LGBTQ+ specific training for mental health staff. Long-term, involving parents in the conversation is crucial for improving outcomes both at home and in school. The CECP school lacks specialized programming and support for LGBTQ+ students, making these recommendations important. Lina Yarbrough. This clip was taken from the 2023 National Youth Advocate Program video designated to show the importance of mental health for LGBTQ plus teens in America. Mental health issues have become an epidemic for teens in recent decades, and the pandemic only exacerbated those issues. In 2022, nearly half of LGBTQ plus teens in Colorado attempted or seriously considered attempting suicide. Nearly three quarters reported experiencing symptoms of anxiety or depression, and those figures were even higher for trans and non-binary youth. In the video clip we shared, Ray Kendall calls out a very important protective factor when it comes to queer teen mental health, one trusted adult. Bearing Ray's words in mind, these figures about LGBTQ plus mental health become even more significant when we consider that 60% of LGBTQ plus youth who wanted to get help could not access care, citing fear of talking to someone about their struggles, or not being taken seriously, not wanting to seek parent permission, or other concerns such as affordability and skepticism over how effective help would be. These unique concerns are one reason why we felt this presentation was needed. Another concern is that this issue is urgent. Rates of discrimination against LGBTQ plus teens, including hearing anti-LGBTQ plus remarks and experiencing harassment, are very high, with nearly 90% of teens in Colorado reporting that recent political actions have impacted their well-being at least some of the time. This presentation is about the potential for social workers to facilitate self-empowerment for the LGBTQ plus student community at your school, Colorado Early Colleges Parker, or CECP. We are using a power-informed practice framework because it emphasizes power-sharing and collaboration. We believe this approach will foster lasting collaboration between many systems impacting the young people in this community. We will explore how to leverage existing assets in the LGBTQ plus and CECP community using best practices and take a look at program ideas from both South High School in Denver and LGBTQ plus mental health experts in the Denver Metro community. We see these efforts as a blend of locality community development and social action in which these young people are provided the resources and structure to organize, identify what they need, and advocate for themselves with regenerative support from the larger LGBTQ plus community. In general, it is difficult to obtain hard data about this specific population of students, so we have to rely on national and state data. Where possible, we utilize anecdotal reports from CECP students. We believe these methods are sound, but we will be careful not to ascribe conclusions at the individual level. CECP serves students aged 13 to 20 with a vast majority between 14 and 18 years old. While we are not able to measure the number of LGBTQ plus students at CECP, we can assume that the school follows the national trend of 10%, meaning that we are talking about around 45 students. This number may in fact be higher based on staff reports and may or may not represent members of the community who are not out at school. CECP serves students from mainly Douglas County, but includes students from Elbert, El Paso, Arapaho, and Denver counties, meaning the majority of students live in a conservative political and ideological environment, which could potentially exacerbate risk factors, like families accepting identities or prohibiting access to care, as well as the negative impacts of policies targeting members of the LGBTQ plus community. CECP has several school-wide mental health initiatives, but it has no programming designed for LGBTQ plus students specifically, and its staff members or otherwise do not have any specialized training for working with LGBTQ plus teens. Additionally, certain school policies, such as broad parental access to the Infinite Campus grading portal, where preferred student names are visible, may be actively harmful to students. A noted strength of the LGBTQ plus community at CECP is that they are willing generally to take advantage of the counseling services at school to check in or seek help. Based on discussions with these students, they report a lack of access to resources outside of school, such as therapy, and many report feeling less supported in their identities at home than at school. In addition to the lack of school-sponsored programming, there are no clubs or student-level organizations, such as the Gender and Sexuality Alliance, or GSA, specifically for LGBTQ plus student support and inclusion. The reason we are speaking with you, the mental health team and administrators at CECP, is that we feel you are in the best position to address the issues and gaps we have described, beginning with two recommendations and a longer-term goal. First, we encourage you to stimulate community amongst LGBTQ plus students by sponsoring a GSA club. Second, we recommend that you acquire LGBTQ plus specific training for your mental health staff. Finally, we encourage the long-term goal of examining ways to bring parents into this conversation in order to work together to improve outcomes at home as well as in school.