A May 2025 study by The Trevor Project on LGBTQ youth’s ability to access mental health care found nearly two-thirds (65%) of participants reported having at least one mental health diagnosis.
The Alliance for LGBT Youth Executive Director Pauline Green, Esq., who has served as the non-profit organization’s chief executive since 2017, is witnessing the increased need firsthand as the non-profit organization has seen the number of young people on the Alliance’s list as being in crisis at the same time increase fivefold in the past year.
The Alliance offers a comprehensive system of care to LGBTQ youth, their families, and community organizations throughout Miami-Dade County.
“The eligibility criteria is really that a young person is LGBTQ, identifies as LGBTQ, or is questioning and on their journey of self-identification,” Green explained. “We have three pillars of work as an organization. There are mental health components such as care coordination and individual, group, and family counseling. Then there’s youth leadership and opportunities for social connection and enrichment. The third is advocating for our young people at the micro, meso, and macro levels. It’s critical that folks understand that our young people need these services and that the Alliance is providing them free of charge.”
While approximately 70% of those the Alliance serves are ages 18 or younger, The Our Fund Foundation has enabled it to help young people up to 22 years of age transition more softly into early adulthood.
“They really care about our work, our young people, our mission, and identifying ways for us to further extend our services,” Green said. “The funding that they have provided is critical. We’re able to provide some supports to our transitional-aged youth who often fall through the cracks because child services or youth services end at 18. Many of us have had the privilege of the ability to lean on a parent or guardian so that there’s not an experience of homelessness or even health or mental health crises. A LGBTQ young person who has been kicked out at the age of 18 does not have that same support.”
Green reports that within the past year there have been multiple funding cuts at the federal level and that access to mental health and case management social services has been greatly reduced within the LGBTQ community.
“Our Fund has been instrumental in ensuring that by funding mental health and wellness programming — care coordination, individual counseling, and family therapy with licensed clinicians — that our LGBTQ youth have access to free and competent, accessible LGBTQ-affirming mental health services,” she said.
There are new factors facing the community’s youth according to another study by the Trevor Project that found 90% of LGBTQ+ young people said their well-being was negatively impacted due to recent politics.
“They are watching our state’s leaders and now our federal government in the targeted attacks against them as people, as human beings,” she stressed.” Some young people are going back into the ‘closet’ because it is safer there, which we know is only going to further increase their sense of isolation if they cannot connect even with each other, much less identify openly with safe people, with adults, with parents. That also means that some young people who may have been able to access our services before, who would have felt safe, don’t feel as safe.”
American poet E.E. Cummings once said, “It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” Green is uniquely qualified to lead the Alliance through her lived experience as a Black and Filipino queer woman who once worked as a middle school teacher.
“That experience helped me to understand and really appreciate the brain development and human development of a young person between ages of 12, 13, 14, where they are understanding themselves and where oftentimes they’re not listened to because they’re considered babies or children,” she said. “In fact, they are developing self. They’ve been developing self for some time and at this point they really need to be listened to and heard so that they can feel supported and safe in that very tenuous, sensitive time of life. Statistically, we know for a fact that even having one single adult be of support to an LGBTQ youth is lifesaving.”
The Art of Community
A 2024 study by the Trevor Project found that among LGBTQ+ young people in the previous year:
- More than 1 in 10 (12%) attempted suicide;
- 39% seriously considered attempting suicide including 46% of transgender and nonbinary young people with LGBTQ+ youth of color reporting higher rates than white peers;
- 49% of those ages 13-17 experienced bullying and those who did reported significantly higher rates of attempting suicide; and
- 50% who wanted mental health care were not able to get it.
The Our Fund Foundation is proud to support The Alliance for LGBT Youth. In this series, we explore the non-profit organizations throughout our community from those honoring our history to those who are nourishing the young people who are our future. We encourage you to learn more and add your support to one that matches your passion.
David Jobin
The Our Fund Foundation
President & CEO
