Envision:You Merges With Denver Family Institute to Strengthen LGBTQ+ Mental Health Support and Care

With 84% of LGBTQ+ individuals reporting that the current political environment has negatively impacted their mental health, and with 51% stating the impact has been “to a great extent” and 73% of responded indicating that LGBTQ+ affirming care is one of the most important factors when choosing a healthcare provider, via the 2025 YouFlourish LGBTQ+ Mental Health Needs Assessment Survey, the need for mental health services for the LGBTQ+ community has never been more vital.

The integration of Envision:You into the Denver Family Institute plans to be a haven for those who need medical services. Envision:You’s mission focus is to support, educate, and empower members of Colorado’s LGBTQ+ community living with mental health challenges and substance use disorders. Founded by Steven Haden in 2018, the origin for creating the organization comes from addressing the inequities that have been in place for decades.

“I founded Envision:You in 2018, and it comes from a deeply personal place,” says Haden. “I have been in recovery for about 20 years. I experienced some really serious mental health issues a couple of decades ago. You know, as a queer person living in environments where so many people, LGBTQ+ individuals, experience mental health disparities, challenges in accessing affirming care, finding supportive environments, whether it’s at home, school or work, I felt a calling to start an organization that can help address the mental health and well-being for my community.”

Haden explains that Envision:You is committed to delivering community-based solutions that address mezzo and macro-level systemic challenges. The organization advances this mission through several key initiatives, including the Q is for Questioning program and the Behavioral Health Provider Training Program.

Haden says, “We offer an evidence-based, six part behavioral health provider training program developed with a learning and development company and the community. Launched nearly five years ago, it has trained more than 2,500 healthcare professionals nationwide to deliver better, higher quality, affirming care to LGBTQ+ people. We also offer our Q is for Questioning program, which supports trusted adults in creating safe and affirming spaces for LGBTQ+ youth.”

He added that providing the right type of care and programming is crucial because inadequate treatment can have harmful consequences and even turn people from seeking medical help.

Haden explains, “Without targeted training to work with specific populations, a provider may misgender someone, use the wrong pronouns or name, ask irrelevant questions, or, in some cases, blame people for their circumstances because of their identity.” He continues, “In my own experience, early in my struggle with a severe substance use disorder, a provider suggested that my lifestyle was contributing to my addiction. For many, that can be devastating, because my identity is not negotiable. It is not a lifestyle. This is who I am.

“So the language itself was really harmful and not surprising for many people; they hear that language, they find themselves in a place that’s not supportive, and we turn away. We turn away from these systems that are designed to help people heal and grow. And yet they’re often met with systems that are not welcoming. And so people don’t get the help they need. So that’s been a really important program for us.”

Within the past year, Haden saw an opportunity to scale programming to meet the continuing necessities of the community due to challenges in raising money by partnering with The Denver Family Institute (DFI). As stated on DFI’s site, its mission is to provide low-fee, strength-based counseling services to all individuals, couples, and families and provides an intensive Marriage and Family Therapy Training and Supervision Program.

“And so when I had the opportunity to meet Emily Dorn, the Executive Director at Denver Family Institute, they’re already doing some work in support of the LGBTQ+ community,” says Haden. “It’s a strong value of theirs to work in partnership with community to support healing. And as I got to know Emily and the values that Denver Family Institute have, it just seemed like a great partnership. It seemed like a great opportunity to bring the best of what Envision:You has under the umbrella of Denver Family Institute.”

Emily Dorn illustrates that when she heard Envision:You and DFI could work together to help the entire LGBTQ+ community, including the youth, it was too good an opportunity to pass on.

“(Steven) had really aptly identified this landscape is very challenging for nonprofits. This is not the time to go it alone, and really had seen the work and the alignment that DFI had been leading, specifically pertaining to LGBTQ+ youth. And we really united on this vision, this shared vision that there’s this massive gap in training when it comes to how mental health providers are prepared to work with the queer community writ large, but specifically with youth. So we were working with the same mission-vision to establish a bar when it comes to how providers are trained.”

She continues to share the vision of this partnership to become the blueprint of how providers can provide the correct and essential services to the public.

“And our vision is to really scale this, not just in Colorado, but to establish and then raise the bar for how providers are equipped to really work with this population, this community,” says Dorn. “So from the get go, that alignment was so inspiring and clear. And as we kept exploring that possibility of combining forces, it just became more and more clear that reunited vision and mission and what they’ve built and what DFI has built are so complementary to each other. So it really felt like such a wonderful match, a strategic match that would allow both missions and both organizations to really elevate their presence and have a greater impact.”

The partnership evolved into Envision:You being integrated into DFI with the official announcement being made in early August of this year. DFI has laid out a 12- to 18-month timeline and will continue to support existing Envision: You programs. Dorn says the existing employees will stay on to contribute to maintaining the programs from Envision: You.

“We are collaborating and contracting with some of the former EY (Envision:You) staff members for the sake of continuity, and we will likely repost a few positions in the coming months,” says Dorn. “The contracted co-facilitators for EY’s training programs have continued on under DFI. Nobody was let go during the transition—Many folks found new opportunities as the exploration was taking place. Steven has been incredibly collaborative and generous with his time to support this transition.”

The LGBTQ+ advocacy group Human Rights Campaign (HRC) reported in 2023 that of the 550 introduced bills in state legislatures, more than half, 290, targeted LGBTQ+ youth. Haden believes even though many of the laws don’t pass, they still cause damage that is difficult to overcome and has a massive impact.

“While many of them have not passed, just the introduction and the media coverage around those creates a hostile environment, right? You have leaders who are supposed to be caring for their community, who are supposed to be representing all people in their community, targeting in really nasty and horrible ways certain segments of our community to take away rights, access to healthcare, all the things, right? And so it’s important to understand what happens.”

Dorn says the demanding political climate, combined with the recent COVID pandemic, was one of the motivating factors for Haden to reach out to DFI.

“And one of the reasons that Steven has shared for reaching out to DFI and considering DFI as a place for this partnership and this expansion is the direct service component of our work,” So we’re able to train our therapists in-house and then literally the next day, like, after their class, after their supervision, they’re bringing this exceptional level of care directly to their clients.”

Even though Haden’s day-to-day time at Envision:You has ended, he’s excited about the combined strength of Envision: You and DFI to meet the needs and address the challenges for the increasingly tough times ahead.

“And I’m so glad to be turning over all of this incredible work over the last seven years to the team at Denver Family Institute. And I know from our conversations that, you know, in the near future in the coming months, they’re gonna be really sitting down and thinking about, how do they grow this combined organization to be able to do more, positively impact more people’s lives.”

DFI is also looking forward to the annual Queering Mental Health issue in May 2026 for which, as usual, they will partner with OFM to uplift and support our LGBTQ+ community.