Celebrating Mentoring with Pride!

During June, MENTOR IR celebrates Pride Month and shines a light on the ways the mentoring movement, by driving equity and promoting inclusivity, can offer LGBTQ+ youth a safe space where they can be their true selves and have their voices heard. Join us in elevating programs and resources to support LGBTQ+ youth and stories of mentorship from within the community.

GSA
Shout out to the Gender and Sexuality Alliance (GSA) program that is housed in Big Brothers Big Sisters Independence. Their mission is to close the mentoring gap with LGBTQ+ youth through intentional mentoring programs that make connections to local communities and by building coalitions committed to youth voice and advocacy. By matching mentors that identify within the LGBTQ+ community and reflecting the racially diverse, gender-expansive, and lived experiences of our youth, they are able to reduce the risk to youth who have been marginalized for their sexuality and/or gender-identity and expression. They offer programming for LGBTQ+ youth in both their Community-Based and School-Based programs that centers young people’s unique experiences through the wide variety of circumstances they can expect to encounter as they discover, disclose, and celebrate their identities. Check them out here!

GALAEI
We also want to give a shout out to GALAEI! For 30 years, GALAEI has provided a home and familia to the city of Philadelphia and so many individuals who have stepped through their doors for respite, resources, and the kind of love, support, and compassion that queer, trans, brown, black, indigenous, and people of color give freely to all who are in need. Their mission of radical social justice is rooted in the radical love that we pursue each day for trans and queer people. Their mission of radical social justice started with the acknowledgment that what we seek in regard to justice is not necessarily radical, but that what is radical is anyone—any individual, any institution—that denies our humanity and the needs and resources to support us. Check them out here!

RESOURCES
From MENTOR National and Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, The LGBTQ Supplement to the Elements of Effective Practice for Mentoring™ responds to a long-standing call to extend the reach and quality of mentoring relationships to one of our nation’s most underserved, marginalized, and vulnerable populations: youth who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning (LGBTQQ). As a well-documented body of research has noted, large numbers of LGBTQQ youth are growing up at a deficit, facing difficult odds due to day-to-day experiences with societal stigma, victimization, bias, and rejection. Given such a landscape, there is a need for caring adults, advocates, and mentors now more than ever. Furthermore, the recommendations for LGBTQQ mentoring checklist is intended to provide additional research- and practitioner-informed recommendations for youth mentoring programs that will support them in more effectively serving lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning (LGBTQQ) youth—as well as LGBTQ volunteers and other stakeholders. DOWNLOAD THE FULL REPORT AND CHECKLIST HERE!

In addition to the LGBTQ supplement and checklist, we at MENTOR Independence Region offer a Social Identity, Power, & Empowerment: Empowering Youth Using Mentoring Strategies training. The goal of this training is to ensure that mentors understand the concepts of social identity and how they are linked to power, and then use that power to empower youth. In this training, participants will explore their own social identities and the social identities of those to whom they provide support; examine the power dynamics of adult-youth interactions, adult-youth relationships, and/or youth-serving organizations or workplace interactions and relationships; and practice youth empowerment strategies. Reach out for more information!

We join people across the country in celebrating Pride and advocating for the rights of LGBTQIA+ youth. Mentoring connects individuals, promotes understanding, and is a powerful tool for driving equity. By giving young people access to caring adults who they can talk with and relate to, #MentoringAmplifies strong communities. Join us in strengthening those networks of support at mentoring.org/pride. For more information and to connect with MENTOR Independence Region, please contact Reggie Perez at mentorteam@mentorir.org!