Stories of risk and resilience: Understanding violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth

More than two million youth who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender are at high risk for victimization based on increasing visibility and a subsequent decreasing societal tolerance for their existence (D\u27Augelli, 1996; Hershberger & D\u27Augelli, 1995; Human Rights Watch, 2001 a). This victimization is associated with negative health outcomes including anxiety, depression, substance abuse, and suicide (D\u27Augelli, 1998; Herek, Cogan, & Gillis, 1999; Meyer 1995; Paul et al., 2002; Savin-Williams & Cohen, 1996). The public health community is in a unique position to create necessary changes at the larger community and societal levels to address anti-gay violence. Understanding the risks associated with identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender in a heterosexually dominated society is essential to an effective public health response. Equally important is an understanding of how these youth demonstrate resilience, succeeding despite adverse conditions. Current models of resilience, however, have not considered the social worlds of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth. Situated within a critical research paradigm, the study employs a grounded theory methodology guided by theories of oppression, feminism, and relational-cultural to explore with the participants the larger socio-political system within which victimization is fostered and maintained. The purposes of this study include: (1) Explore the perceptions and experiences of anti-gay violence among lesbian, gay bisexual, and transgender youth. (2) Identify the consequences of these experiences. (3) Develop a conceptual model of resilience from the narratives of the participants. Two focus groups with 12 youth and 22 in-depth individual interviews with 15 youth were conducted. The participants describe a culture of homophobia that makes acts of violence against them acceptable, creating a sense of disconnection and alienation for the participants, an experience named, Becoming the Other. The conceptual model developed represents resilience as a dynamic process. The core category, Reclaiming the Self, is the process by which the participants resist against their otherness by reclaiming their true selves and gaining a sense of pride in their lives. The model asserts that Reclaiming the Self is developed through two channels: connection and resistance. Using a social-ecological framework, implications for prevention programming and policy are discussed

Sexual minority youth, social connection and resilience: From personal struggle to collective identity

Sexual minority youth are at increased risk for negative health outcomes including substance abuse, depression, anxiety, and suicide. Researchers suggest that sexual orientation victimization is a predictor of such outcomes. Social connectedness--or the importance of belonging where youth perceive they are cared for and empowered within a given context--has been associated with positive youth outcomes. This qualitative study utilized life story methodology. Life stories are considered to be important expressions of one's identity and are shaped by personal, social, and cultural contexts. Twenty-two interviews were conducted with 15 young people ranging in age from 14 to 22 years. Two focus groups with youth were also conducted. Youth were recruited from rural and urban communities in Massachusetts. This study contributes to the literature on resilience by including the voices of sexual minority youth and explores the meaning of social connection in their lives. Youth discuss the ways in which individual connection and group affiliation served to affirm one's identity, and provided a forum for moving personal struggle to collective action. The findings suggest the need to reconceptualize consequences of disconnection (such as depression or suicide) from individual pathology and attend to these consequences as a response to discrimination and stigma. Implications for these findings and areas for future research are discussed.Resilience Youth Sexual minority Discrimination Marginalized groups Social connection USA

Developing leaders: implementation of a peer advising program for a public health sciences undergraduate program

Peer advising is an integral part of our undergraduate advising system in the Public Health Sciences major at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The program was developed in 2009 to address the advising needs of a rapidly growing major that went from 25 to over 530 majors between 2007 and 2014. Each year, 9–12 top performing upper-level students are chosen through an intensive application process. A major goal of the program is to provide curriculum and career guidance to students in the major and empower students in their academic and professional pursuits. The year-long program involves several components, including: staffing the drop-in advising center, attending training seminars, developing and presenting workshops for students, meeting prospective students and families, evaluating ways to improve the program, and collaborating on self-directed projects. The peer advisors (PAs) also provide program staff insight into the needs and perspectives of students in the major. In turn, PAs gain valuable leadership and communication skills, and learn strategies for improving student success. The Peer Advising Program builds community and fosters personal and professional development for the PAs. In this paper, we will discuss the undergraduate peer advising model, the benefits and challenges of the program, and lessons learned. Several methods were used to understand the perceived benefits and challenges of the program and experiences of students who utilized the Peer Advising Center. The data for this evaluation were drawn from three sources: (1) archival records from the Peer Advising Center; (2) feedback from PAs who completed the year-long internship; and (3) a survey of students who utilized the Peer Advising Center. Results of this preliminary evaluation indicate that PAs gain valuable skills that they can carry into their professional world. The program is also a way to engage students in building community within the major

Creating a Community of Practice to Prevent Suicide Through Multiple Channels: Describing the Theoretical Foundations and Structured Learning of PC CARES

It is critical to develop practical, effective, ecological, and decolonizing approaches to indigenous suicide prevention and health promotion for the North American communities. The youth suicide rates in predominantly indigenous small, rural, and remote Northern communities are unacceptably high. This health disparity, however, is fairly recent, occurring over the last 50 to 100 years as communities experienced forced social, economic, and political change and intergenerational trauma. These conditions increase suicide risk and can reduce people’s access to shared protective factors and processes. In this context, it is imperative that suicide prevention includes—at its heart— decolonization, while also utilizing the “best practices” from research to effectively address the issue from multiple levels. This article describes such an approach: Promoting Community Conversations About Research to End Suicide (PC CARES). PC CARES uses popular education strategies to build a “community of practice” among local and regional service providers, friends, and families that fosters personal and collective learning about suicide prevention in order to spur practical action on multiple levels to prevent suicide and promote health. This article will discuss the theoretical underpinnings of the community intervention and describe the form that PC CARES takes to structure ongoing dialogue, learning, solidarity, and multilevel mobilization for suicide prevention