Accelerating Inclusion: building stronger support for LGBTQI students and families.

The marriage equality debate flooded young LGBTQI people and children of LGBTQI parents with harmful messages about themselves and their families.

Many parents (both LGBTQI and ally) want their school communities to do more to counteract this harm* but find advocating for this to be difficult and isolating**.

My idea is to make advocating easier by holding a series of workshops connecting parents with advocacy experts and resources, and with other parents who want greater LGBTQI support in schools. Resources generated by the workshops will be put online to reach those parents who are unable to attend in person.

Making schools more welcoming to LGBTQI students and families has been shown to improve the mental health and wellbeing of ALL students, as all students benefit from an environment where they can more fully be themselves.***

This project will build parents’ skills, knowledge, and confidence to advocate for positive change in their school communities. Parents will learn about building ally networks, using story-telling to change hearts and minds, working with school councils and parent groups, and other effective approaches.

Online promotion of the resources generated by the workshops will ensure a broad, ripple-out impact of positive change.

*https://www.rainbowsinschools.org/did-people-want-schools-to-do-more-and-if-so-what/
**https://www.rainbowsinschools.org/barriers-and-reduction-strategies/
***https://www.glsen.org/article/2015-nationalschool-climate-survey