Feel Good Friday - The Trevor Project

It’s the last Feel Good Friday during Pride month so today’s focus is on an organization helping LGBTQ youth, The Trevor Project. 

The Trevor Project has been in the news recently after NFL player Carl Nassib came out as gay and announced he was making $100k donation to the organization. If you’re not familiar with their work, The Trevor Project is “the leading national organization providing crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer & questioning (LGBTQ) young people under 25." 

As stated in their 2020 Annual Report there are “more than 1.8 million LGBTQ young people who seriously consider suicide in the U.S. each year.” That’s why the mission of The Trevor Project is “to end suicide among LGBTQ youth”. 

 

The organization was founded in 1998 by the creators of the short film Trevor, a coming-of-age story of a gay teen set in 1981. The same night the film premiered on HBO in 1998, the filmmakers launched The TREVOR Lifeline, the first national crisis intervention and suicide prevention hotline for LGBTQ youth.

Since then, the programs of The Trevor Project have expanded to include: 24/7 crisis services via phone, text and chat; peer support through a social networking community; research to help improve services offered and advocate for change; education and public awareness programs; and advocacy at the federal, state, and local levels to fight for policies and laws that protect LGBTQ youth.

In Fiscal year 2020, volunteers with The Trevor Project have served over 150,000 youth through the crisis hotline, text and chat, and TrevorSpace.org has over 300,000 users. The organization also conducted the largest mental health survey of LGBTQ youth in the nation while the research team stayed active publishing research briefs and peer-reviewed journal articles. The Trevor Project’s goal for upcoming years is to serve 1.8 million crisis contacts every year.

If you’d like to support LGBTQ youth during Pride month, or any other time of year, there are several ways you can get involved. Become a volunteer crisis counselor, make a donation, and support The Trevor Project on social media by liking their Facebook page and following them on Twitter @TrevorProject and Instagram@trevorproject.