Denver Family Institute Bridges the Gap for Queer Youth in Denver

Denver Family Institute has announced that their staff will now be able to embark on an 18-week training program specifically designed to help support LGBTQ+ youth.

The course will be offered twice a year as well as for a la carte viewing through the newly created Queer Youth Program. In a press release, the nonprofit said it has launched the program in response to a national survey taken in 2024 by The Trevor Project, which revealed a few concerning statistics with its responses. According to the results of the survey, 50% of LGBTQ+ youth who wanted mental health care in the U.S. were unable to access it, and only 40% of queer youth found their homes to be gender-affirming. These alarming statistics are unacceptable, and the Institute’s strategic response to them are certainly appreciated.

“Therapy can be a useful tool for queer youth and their families, but traditionally, a therapist is only on the side of the queer youth, or on the side of their parents. Our program is designed to show professionals a new way forward to benefit the whole family,” says August Tousignant-Stanton, program director at the Institute. The course was designed by queer mental health professionals and their allies and includes teachings on topics like supporting parents of queer youth and gender-affirming care. It also goes over issues queer people are typically more likely to have experienced, like homelessness, survival sex, and neurodivergence. On top of that, it also introduces a new educational model, the “Queer-Adjusted Systemic Lens.”

The program is available now for therapists working at the Institute. According to Executive Director Emily Dorn, the program is also not only accessible in Denver, or Colorado alone. It will serve its purpose all over the country via remote virtual sessions. The program, the first of its kind in the U.S., will certainly make a difference for queer youth and families seeing therapists all over the country. “This can help queer youth and their families find a professional to talk to and reduce negative outcomes such as self-harm or suicide among queer youth. Our youth deserve therapists that ‘get it,'” Dorn says. Denver Family Institute definitely ‘gets it,’ and hopefully others will soon follow suit.