On her final day as Bay State Attorney General before taking office as Massachusetts Governor, Maura Healey yesterday issued her office’s first-ever “Mental Health and Gender-Affirming Care Resource Guide for Massachusetts LGBTQ2IA+ Young People and Their Trusted Adults.”
“As dangerous homophobic and transphobic policies are being enacted across the country, it is more important than ever that we support our LGBTQ2IA+ young people and ensure they have access to critical services and resources,” said AG Healey.
“In publishing this Resource Guide, it is our hope that we are able to increase the visibility and accessibility of health care providers to our young people, and to better help them navigate through various financial and socio-cultural barriers to receive care,” she said.
The Resource Guide, intended for LGBTQ2IA+ young people, their trusted adults, and supportive community members, was developed in connection with a $1 million grant awarded to the AG’s Office by the US Department of Justice for the STOP School Violence and Mental Health Grant Program in 2018. The AG’s Office is utilizing the funding to collaborate with Sandy Hook Promise to implement and expand violence and suicide prevention training programs in middle and high schools across the state.
As part of this federal grant, the AG’s Office also created this Resource Guide with the goal of providing information about specialized mental health services available throughout Massachusetts for LGBTQ2IA+ young people, a community who experiences high rates of suicide and mental illness as well as high rates of discrimination and victimization, yet traditionally has had unequal access to health care services.
The Resource Guide also aims to acknowledge the roles that intersectionality and social determinants of health play in mental health outcomes of the LGBTQ2IA+ community.
In the coming weeks, the Resource Guide will also be made available in Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, and Mandarin. This Resource Guide will be distributed to school districts and health care providers and will also be available online.
To view the Resource Guide in full, please click here.
— from a Mass. Office of the Attorney General press release.
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