RECLAIM

The People of Color (POC) Therapy Cohort provides mentorship, supervision, and professional development to POC therapy practitioners and students committed to working with LGBTQ youth and interrupting oppression in therapeutic relationships. It creates a circle of safety within the common academic experience of institutional violence through racism, and supports participants’ agency to build power and create a new landscape of options for LGBTQ youth of color in our region.

The Cohort started in 2011 partly in response to our reaching out for culturally specific support for POC youth and families and finding very limited resources. We want to support the youth who come through the doors here and address the significant ways in which racism and classism interact with oppression related to gender identity and sexual orientation.

The Cohort aims to:
*Reduce therapeutic barriers for LGBTQ youth of color and their families by having POC youth ally practitioners offer accessible therapeutic support;
*Support POC practitioners to overcome cultural and financial barriers to getting licensure in their chosen therapy field, which will lead to increased access to better paying positions for POC practitioners;
*Build a regional network of POC practitioners with self-identified competency to support youth healing from oppression related to gender identity and sexual orientation.
*What started as a strategy to train POC practitioners has unfolded into an organization-wide commitment to serve youth and support practitioners at the intersection of racial and gender justice.

RECLAIM offers both training and on-going consultation to organizations that are interested in improving their ability to work effectively around experiences of sexual orientation and gender identity.

Basic content for trainings frequently includes:

*How to be an effective ally
*Discussion of preferred language and terminology and the impact of chronic and acute trauma
*Examining how sexual orientation and gender identity intersects with other forms of oppression
*Concrete steps to becoming more accessible to this population

We also provide on-going clinical consultation (often bi-weekly or monthly) to organizations who wish to support their front line staff as they respond to the mental health needs of their clients.