Transparencies June 2021

June 2021: Facts & Resources This Pride Month

A Message From Our CEO

June is Pride Month, celebrated each year to honor the 1969 Stonewall Uprising, a tipping point for the queer rights movement in the United States. Pride Month celebrates lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals’ impact on history locally, nationally, and internationally. It is an opportunity to raise awareness of the facts around LGBTQIA+ behavioral health and access to services, as well as to share resources to educate the public and improve the well-being of the LGBTQIA+ community.

Due to experiences of discrimination, social stigma, and lack of access to affirming healthcare, members of the LGBTQIA+ community experience mental health issues at more than twice the rate of others. In fact, 61% have depression, 45% have PTSD, and 36% have an anxiety disorder. Transgender individuals experience even more significant health disparities because they are less likely to have health insurance, more likely to live in poverty due to a lack of employment non-discrimination protections. For example, transgender individuals are 15 times more likely to consider suicide than cisgender individuals. Detailed data is available through this fact sheet produced by the American Psychiatric Association.

Below we’ve put together some helpful resources in celebration of Pride Month.

LGBTQIA+ Helplines & Support

Trevor Lifeline – Free suicide prevention and emotional support for LGBTQ individuals under 25. National line, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Call (866) 488-7386 or text START to 678-678.
TransLifeLine – Free support in English and Spanish. Run by trans people for trans people, those questioning if they are trans, and their family and friends. National Line, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Call (877) 565-8860.
Integral Care 24/7 Helpline – Free emotional support for ALL in Austin-Travis County. Help is available in multiple languages. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Call 512-472-4357. Press 1 for English, then 1.
Out Youth – Provides a safe space for Austin LGBTQ+ youth and allies to come together, receive support, and make friends. Programs and training for parents, teachers, and community members as well.
The Kind Clinic – Full-service sexual health and wellness clinics in Austin and San Antonio, providing PrEP and PEP access, STI testing and treatment, HIV testing and gender affirming care.
Project Transitions – Provides supportive living, housing, and hospice care for people with HIV/AIDS in Central Texas.
Family Eldercare’s Gay & Lesbian Senior Services – In-home counseling, money management/bill paying services, Texas Certified Guardian case managers and more, serving Central Texans.
Austin Galano Club – Serves LGBTQIA+ and allies in recovery with a wide variety of in-person and virtual 12-step meetings, including Adult Children of Alcoholics/Dysfunctional Families, Co-Dependents Anonymous and more.
PFLAG Austin – Free peer support groups and education for parents, families and friends of LGBTQ people. Meetings in Buda, Central Austin, South Austin, Cedar Park and Georgetown.
What’s in the Mirror? – Provides mental health awareness and suicide prevention to communities of color through art, advocacy and affirming care with a focus on women, youth and LGBTQIA+ persons in Central Texas. Includes mental health and wellness database.

Educational Resources:

What does LGBTQIA+ stand for? This article is a dictionary of terms explaining the full acronym.
Why do gender identity pronouns matter? NPR takes an insightful look.
Take the Medicare Learning Network’s 1-hour training “Improving Health Care Quality for LGBTQ People”.

I hope these resources build awareness, help reduce stigma and improve access to care this month and beyond. Integral Care is committed to improving the health and well-being of LGBTQIA+ adults and children throughout Travis County. It’s crucial to achieving our vision of Healthy Living for Everyone.

David Evans
Chief Executive Officer

HIGHLIGHTS

Breaking Barriers to Care for People Living with or at Risk of Getting HIV

Our C.A.R.E. program has added a new service to their important work supporting people living with or at risk of getting HIV who also experience mental health and/or substance use issues. Team members are now going out into the community, meeting people where they are. C.A.R.E.’s Community Health Workers (CHW) outreach team’s goal is to increase linkage to and retention in substance use treatment, mental health and medical care for people experiencing homelessness and other barriers to entering treatment or recovery services. In the past eight months, they have served over 1,000 individuals across 30 counties.

The CHW outreach team also provides harm reduction education and materials, including Naloxone kits to reverse an opioid overdose, safer sex kits (condoms and lube), needle cleaning kits and safer smoking kits. In 4 years, the C.A.R.E. program has trained 221 unique individuals to reverse an opioid overdose with a Naloxone kit. Forty-three successful overdose reversals have been reported to us in the past 2 years alone.

We’d like to extend a special thank you to the (CHW) outreach team, mental health clinicians and administrative staff.

LGBTQIA+ Mental Health Virtual Forum

In honor of Pride Month, Integral Care will host a virtual community forum focused on mental health and the LGBTQIA+ community. The date will be announced shortly for this guided conversation, followed by audience questions. Experts from across Travis County will explore how stigma and discrimination can increase mental health challenges, how to reach out and support a loved one who is LGBTQIA+ and how to access gender affirming mental health and substance use disorder care.

Jessica Pedrick, MEd (she/her/hers), Integral Care’s Clinical Manager of Special Projects, will moderate the panel. Audience members will have an opportunity to submit questions in advance of the forum (during registration) and ask questions at the end of the discussion.

Check Out Our Fiscal Year 2020 Annual Report

2020 was a year like no other. Through our first digital-only FY2020 Annual Report, learn about our work during the year:

the dedication, compassion and creativity of our teams,
our collaborations with other agencies and organizations to support our whole community through COVID-19,
a commitment to explore and eradicate our own institutional racism and structural inequities,
and the ways in which we transformed the lives of Austin-Travis County adults and children living with mental illness, substance use disorder and intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), while reducing public costs.

Integral Care is committed to the health and well-being of our community every day – in good times and bad. If this year has taught us one thing, it’s that we are stronger together.

Help Austin Capture the Experience of People with Disabilities

The City of Austin is studying the quality of life for people with disabilities. Part of the study includes a survey of people with disabilities who live and/or work in Austin. Sign up to participate in one of several focus groups being held to understand the good and the bad about living and/or working in Austin.

Focus groups represent different disabilities and needs, including people of color with disabilities, people with disabilities who identify as LGBTQIA+, and family members.

We encourage you to take part in this opportunity to voice your experience and concerns. All focus groups will be virtual and conducted through Microsoft Teams. Register for a focus group here. If you have any questions, please send an email to austindisabilityqol@pcgus.com.

Whats New

How do you start a conversation with a friend or family member whose mental health or substance use has you concerned? KVUE turned to our expert clinicians for tips.
KVUE also did astory about a former Integral Care client who was impacted by our 24/7 Helpline staff. “Had I not made that call, I don’t think I’d be here today. I really don’t.”
ECHO featured Integral Care as their Spotlight Partner of the month. Check out the video to see our homeless and housing team in action.
We encourage you to check out HHSC’s free eLearning series for all populations, recently developed by UT Health Science Center at San Antonio. Choose from a wide variety of trainings – from Aging and Behavioral Health to Serious Emotional Disturbances in Children.

TRANSPARENCIES

June 2021: Facts & Resources This Pride Month

A Message From Our CEO

HIGHLIGHTS

Whats New

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