Agency Report On The Los Angeles Lgbt Center

At the beginning of my research for a human service site, I knew I wanted to do it on a website research report of a LGBT center and I decided to do it on one that is local to me. In addition I will be doing a fellowship with the Los Angeles LGBT Center this summer, so I thought it would be a good start to gain more information about this institution before my fellowship starts.

Some background for this human service organization mentioned online was that “Since 1969 the Los Angeles LGBT Center has cared for, championed, and celebrated LGBT individuals and families in Los Angeles and beyond” (About the Center). This organization is relevant to human services since they do so offer so many services for the LGBTQI+ community throughout the Los Angeles regions at their various site locations from west, central, and east Los Angeles regions.

As an undocumented, queer, and non-binary person who has lived experiences of navigating these institutions for services it is important for me to do research on this agency as well. In this report we will cover the historical perspective of this agency, the services offered and their target populations, the cultural competence skills needed to be an efficient agency, and the improvements this agency may need to address the needs of future clients.

Literature Review

As mentioned earlier, part of the historical perspective of the LA LGBT Center includes that it was founded in 1969 to care for, advocate for, and celebrate LGBT folks throughout the Los Angeles city. It was founded in that year in partly by the “gay and lesbian rights activist Morris Knight” (Los Angeles LGBT Center, 2019) and the current CEO is Lorri Jean. Historically the creation of the LA LGBT center during the 1969’s was the same year of the stonewall riots at Stonewall Inn in New York city and the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot in San Francisco in the year 1960 (Goodman, 2018). Both of these events involved riots that broke out after the queer community was tired of dealing with constant harassment and criminalization for existing in public spaces. These events have a place in history as important queer uprisings against police brutality.

The assistance for this population came to fruition through the work of volunteers, funding from the government, and funding from community members. According to Lorri L. Jean “Fifty years ago, a small group of volunteers banded together and decided to change the world. Perhaps that’s not how they thought of it, but that’s what happened. What began as a vision for helping members of our community developed into what’s now the largest LGBT organization, with nearly 700 employees, thousands of volunteers and supporters, and many more thousands of people whose lives have been changed for the better. What better way to celebrate who we are, where we’ve come from, and where we’re going than with a year-long set of opportunities for everyone to get involved” (50 Years Queer at the L.A. LGBT Center, 2019).

The Center also gained funding from the Federal United States Department of Health and Human Services Administration on Children, Youth and Families since they were a recipient of “a 13. 3 million, five-year grant on October 2, 2010” (Los Angeles LGBT Center, 2019). This was important for the center because “it was the largest-ever grant by the federal government to an LGBT organization, and the only grant out of six total grants that did not go to a government agency or academic institution” (Los Angeles LGBT Center, 2019). In addition, in 2016 “Holly Woodlawn’s estate founded the Holly Woodlawn Memorial Fund for Transgender Youth at the Center, to benefit some of the Center's programs, including Trans Pride L.A., Trans* Lounge, Transgender Economic Empowerment Project, and trans health care services” (Los Angeles LGBT Center, 2019). These are the various forms that the LA LGBT Center has been able to grow and flourish within their city.

The services and programs offered at the LA LGBT Center are ran by 700 employees that provide that span four broad categories: Health, Social Services and Housing, Culture and Education, Leadership and Advocacy (Los Angeles LGBT Center At-A-Glance 2019). Their target population that they serve are “more than 42,000 visits (more than half a million each year) from youth and adults who represent the full diversity of the LGBT community; people of all races, religions, genders, sexual orientations and ages—from the new-born child of an LGBT parent to seniors in their golden years. All our services, which are available to everyone, are free or low-cost” (Los Angeles LGBT Center At-A-Glance 2019). They serve communities throughout the Los Angeles region and are opening up new building to address the needs for affordable housing for homeless LGBTQA+ youth and elderly care.

I think that the fourteen cultural competence skills are important to provide effective services for The Center, but some of the cultural competence skills needed to provide effective service are to flexible, personalize observations, pay attention to thoughts an feelings, a have patience. These cultural competence skills are important for the services at the LA LGBT Center to be effective because working with communities that are marginalized in our communities requires to have a holistic approach to this type of work.

“When being flexible it is important to adjust and readjust, as often as necessary, to quickly changing situations” (Hogan Mikel, 2013, p. 66). To provide effective service we also need to personalize observations by “expressing our personal feelings, thoughts, ideas, and beliefs appropriately, warmly or empathetically if the situation warrants, in order to show the other person that you care about him/her as an individual, one fellow human being to another” (Hogan Mikel, 2013, p. 66). Showing the clients that we serve will help us to develop a rapport with them so we can gain their trust, which will help us to assist them better. Paying attention to thoughts and feelings will help us to take our own thoughts and feelings seriously because “if we remain alert to our interior responses, we can more easily frame our verbal and nonverbal responses in effective ways” (Hogan Mikel, 2013, p. 66).

Being self-aware will help both the professionals and clients long term because it will make their work more efficient. Finally, having patience is key to working in a human service agency because it will help to handle stressful and complex situations in the workplace. As humans, we experience stress at various levels and handle them differently as well. Hogan mentions in the text that “one needs to practice maintaining calm while, at the same time, continuing steadily and persistently through challenging situations” (Hogan Mikel, 2013, p. 66). Hogan emphasizes the need to take care of one selves to avoid burnout and to better serve their clients as well.

Fourth, what else may be needed to address the needs of future clients.

There should be more services and programs tailored to undocumented and queer clients to meet the needs of future clients because sometimes communities can become isolated within in organization if both of their intersecting identities are major aspects of their life. In my research I did find that the LA LGBT Center does offer legal services for undocumented immigrants, which is amazing but there is still so much work to. For example, the elderly population is going to be the biggest by 2050 and there will most likely be undocumented elderly in that population. The undocumented elderly deserve the best care, support, and advocacy and these are conversation that I hope that the LA LGBT Center is having so we can provide resources for folks at the end of the margins in our society. If tailoring more services for undocumented and queer folks is not as feasible to begin with, then I think developing more partnership with local community organizations can be a start.

Discussion

Limitations of historical perspective of agency

Most of the historical information about the LA LGBT Center was available through google searches because I was not able to find enough material about this topic. This limitation may have been due to the fact that I completed option

Conclusions and Future Study

Researching the website was interesting because they have so much information since they offer a variety of services and programs and I wish they had more information about the history of their agency so this was an unfavorable impression for me. The second unfavorable impression from the website was that I wish they had a more in depth description of each location that was part of the LA LGBT Center so I could know more about each locations history and primary regions served. My last unfavorable impression was that there wasn’t information about undocumented folks qualifying for these services within their mission statement.

One of the favorable impressions was that they had a PDF with an elaborate list and details of the services and programs they offer. In that PDF they also had upcoming events listed and the new buildings they have opened along with the services they will offer at those locations! The second favorable impression of the LA LGBT Center website was that they had all their locations listed and with a brief description of what each location offered. There was also PDFs for each location with information about the daily activities that they have planned for each week. The third favorable impression of the site was that they have a career tab for folks who are interested in working at the LA LGBT Center and doing the amazing work they do every day. Overall, the website has a lot of information on their website was great because they offer so much so it all least showed all the services and programs that they offer.