Youth's Lives Every Day
By Jaymes Black (they/she/he pronouns), CEO of The Trevor Project
To The Trevor Project Community:
I grew up in a traditional, religious family in South Texas, which was hard for me as a young queer person. I was lonely, awkward, afraid, and grappled with my identity; I desperately needed a support network like The Trevor Project, but it didn’t exist yet. I came to lead The Trevor Project because I am deeply, personally invested in its work to support LGBTQ+ young people in crisis. Today, I’d like to share my observations and vision for the future of our vital organization.
The Trevor Project will be operating in an extremely complex environment for the foreseeable future: ever-growing demand for our work; an increasingly challenging political environment; a shifting cultural landscape contributing to attacks on LGBTQ+ youth; and continued fundraising headwinds that are limiting resources for many nonprofits like ours. To be able to consistently meet the needs of our community, it is imperative that we adapt accordingly. This entails a number of solutions that will reinforce our services within the context of constrained resources.
This week, I announced to our staff that The Trevor Project will begin a transformation of our organization. This will focus primarily on optimizing our U.S. Crisis Services – accessed 24/7 across phone, text, and web chat. We will better resource and increase the number of staff directly interacting with LGBTQ+ youth, as well as continue to prioritize timely, high-quality care. We will also assess staffing, structures, processes and operations across the organization. The goal of this transformation is to fortify our organization and ensure that we can meet this moment of demand from LGBTQ+ youth, as we have been for nearly three decades.
On November 6, 2024, the day after the presidential election, The Trevor Project experienced a nearly 700% volume increase from LGBTQ+ youth in need of our direct services compared to the weeks prior. This staggering increase signaled a tremendous need for The Trevor Project’s services; it also reinforced an urgent need to improve our operating model. Our lines and counselors were stressed, and so were the LGBTQ+ young people desperately trying to access support.
Along with The Trevor Project’s leadership team and Board, we conducted a deep analysis of our operations and pressure tested our planned transformation. There will be select roles that will be eliminated as part of this process. There will also be new roles, and we will prioritize moving impacted staff into them. I’ll repeat that one of our top priorities is to increase the number of staff providing direct support to LGBTQ+ young people on our lines – some folks have felt understaffed, and we are planning to fix that. We have notified the union representing our staff of our plans and will continue discussing with them as we move through this process.
We will also be exploring new technology solutions to enhance the day-to-day flow on our crisis lines and overall operations. We will continue advancing our stigma reduction and suicide prevention work to garner more support to end the public health crisis of LGBTQ+ youth suicide. And we will, as we always have, continue to work, day-in and day-out, to be there for LGBTQ+ young people in their darkest moments.
Change is never easy or straightforward. An organizational transformation will take patience, compassion, and extensive communication with our staff and partners. I am passionate and optimistic that the changes we’re planning over the next several months will make us the strongest, most reliable, and most resilient support network for LGBTQ+ youth that we have ever been.
Serving as this organization’s first Black, nonbinary CEO is truly the honor of my lifetime. And I am determined to see our organization reach its fullest potential. We need to be functioning at peak capacity so we can continue to work steadily to end the public health crisis of suicide among LGBTQ+ young people.
I appreciate your support as we meet the challenges and opportunities of today to be there for all LGBTQ+ youth, wherever they are and whenever they need us.
In Community,
Jaymes Black, former LGBTQ+ young person and CEO of The Trevor Project
