Providing safe communities and support for LGBTQIA+ youth

Overview

Hetrick-Martin Institute has been the chosen family for LGBTQIA+ youth looking for a sense of belonging and affirmation for more than 40 years. Their youth members become part of a community of care that centers their mental wellness and safety by offering free individual and group counseling as well as access to basic needs - seeing these as critical building blocks for professional and academic success. 

 

The Facts

60% of LGBTQIA+ youth who wanted mental health care in the past year were not able to get it.  28% of LGBTQ youth have reported experiencing homelessness or housing instability at some point in their lives — and those who did had two to four times the odds of reporting depression, anxiety, self-harm, or considering suicide.

Hetrick-Martin Institute

Over the past four decades HMI has been developing new and effective ways to address the critical needs of LGBTQIA+youth, particularly those who live at the intersections as communities of color, and have experienced trauma, rejection, stigma, abuse and physical violence at home and among families of origin, and again within the very systems they rely on to keep them safe: schools, child welfare agencies, emergency shelters, and transitional living programs, and throughout the mental health care delivery system.