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Education Commons

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Education

Journal

2021

Social and Behavioral Sciences

SPACE: Student Perspectives About Civic Engagement

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They’Ve Walked Through Fire To Be Themselves: How Volunteers Can Help Lgbtq Youth, Youla Bekiaris, Randall O'Neill May 2021

They’Ve Walked Through Fire To Be Themselves: How Volunteers Can Help Lgbtq Youth, Youla Bekiaris, Randall O'Neill

SPACE: Student Perspectives About Civic Engagement

LGBTQ youth make up a staggering percentage of the homeless youth population in the United States, and yet the services available to them as compared to their heterosexual/cisgendered counterparts are sorely lacking. This paper examines the Youth Services Program at The Center where LGBTQ youth are offered education/GED tutoring, mental health counseling, vocational training, and much more. The authors describe their experiences as volunteers where, alongside preparing meals, they were fortunate enough to make connections with the youth and discover ways the entire community can become involved to help LGBTQ youth.