Services & Programs

LGBTQ communities can help organizations to identify barriers, gaps, and unintended impacts of existing services. Community-based needs assessments, training and technical assistance, collaborations with LGBTQ groups, and other tools can help organizations make changes to existing service models and launch new services and programs to better address unmet needs. The experiences of LGBTQ people seeking services are infrequently analyzed, even at the programmatic level. Lower rates of utilization can reinforce misperceptions that LGBTQ people may not exist in certain communities or do not need certain kinds of supports. Efforts to adapt service models or create new programs should first take into account existing community resources and prioritize partnerships with existing LGBTQ groups.