Help amplify the multicultural voices of LGBTQ youth

Got an email forwarded from Napa County Mental Health (with whom, by the way, I just submitted a proposal for mental health funding to go to support the LGBT community in Napa).

It's asking for personal experience stories of youth and how their culture has affected their identity...

We are asking your help in educating others about the experience of LGBTQ youth from multicultural communities. Our goal is to build more support for LGBTQ youth throughout California by increasing the understanding of those who provide mental health services.

We are seeking to learn from LGBTQ youth: "How does your race, ethnicity or culture affect your identity as LGBTQ?"

There is no one way to share this information...each person may express their experience differently.

Each person may feel differently about how they are supported, celebrated or challenged by family or community for all of who they are. Every youth's voice is important, every youth's voice will make a difference.

Please email statements reflecting youth "voice" to: Donna Matthews at CA Institute for Mental Health. Email: dmatthews@cimh.org (you may also respond to this blog via email or the comments section)

Please include the youth's first name, age, how they may identify their race, ethnicity and/or culture and the county they live in.

Statements will be considered for posting in an upcoming chapter about LGBTQ youth in the CA Mental Health Directors Association's Transition-Age Youth (TAY) On-Line Resource Guide (see http://www.cmhda.org/committees/com_csoc_tay_rsc.html).