Mental Health Board Session on LGBTQ+ Filled to Capacity

From the McHenry County 708 Mental Health Board:

INDIVIDUALS AND FAMILIES IN AN INCREASINGLY HOSTILE WORLD

IN-PERSON: Trauma Informed Practice with the LGBTQ+ Community: Supporting Queer and Trans Individuals and Families in an Increasingly Hostile World

June 23 @ 9:00 am – 12:15 pm

Trauma Informed Practice with the LGBTQ+ Community: Supporting Queer and Trans Individuals and Families in an Increasingly Hostile World training on Friday, June 23, 2023 from 9:00 am to 12:15 pm at the McHenry County Mental Health Board, 620 Dakota Street in Crystal Lake. Presented by Nancy Mullen, Executive Director of Youth Outlook, and Carolyn Wahlskog, LCSW, Director of Operations and Programming at Youth Outlook.

FULL CAPACITY – REGISTRATION CLOSED
FREE: 3.5 CEUs for LCSW/LSW, LCPC/LPC, Psychologists (IAODAPCA included) 

Description: 2023 has brought an unprecedented number of anti-LGBTQ+, particularly anti-trans legislation, targeting LGBTQ+ affirming healthcare, education, access to sports and restrooms and beyond. Many LGBTQ+ people are living through active trauma as they watch their identities and rights legislated away. This training will provide an opportunity to understand the current experiences of LGBTQ+ individuals in our state and nationwide, provide interactive opportunities to consider proactive approaches to client dilemmas and suggest trauma informed practices and resources for supporting individuals and families.

Objectives:
Understand affirming terminology when working with LGBTQ+ community
Understand up-to-date threats to LGBTQ+ community
Understand the increased need for mental health support among LGBTQ+ clients
Practice examples of providing trauma informed care across human service settings

Presenters:

Carolyn Wahlskog

Carolyn Wahlskog, LCSW (she/they) is the Director of Operations and Programming at Youth Outlook, a youth services agency that works to meet the ever-evolving needs of LGBTQ+ youth and their families in northern Illinois. Additionally, Carolyn is the co-coordinator of Transformative Justice Law Project’s Name Change Mobilization, serving folks across IL. Carolyn works with educators, mental health professionals, and other youth workers to create safe, supportive and affirming policies and practices for working with queer and trans young people and their families.

Nancy Mullen

Nancy Mullen is the executive director of Youth Outlook, the first not-for-profit organization serving lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and non-binary youth and working to increase understanding of LGBT youth issues in DuPage, Kane, Whiteside, LaSalle, DeKalb, Will and suburban Cook Counties in Illinois. Nancy is in her 25th year with Youth Outlook, coming to the agency when it was only 6 months old. A transplant to the Midwest, Nancy holds a Master of Social Work degree from Syracuse University, where she focused on family mental health. Away from Youth Outlook and the world of social work, Nancy is 10 credits away from a culinary degree to become a pastry chef and published her first book, Urban Tidepool, in 2020 and has her second book underway. She accepts community education and professional development requests through both Youth Outlook (LGBT youth issues) and Tidepool Communications LLC (PTSD, PTSD and TBI, family violence).


Comments

Mental Health Board Session on LGBTQ+ Filled to Capacity — 17 Comments

  1. Dingo is the only true victim.
    Too bad it’s his IQ that makes him so. Moron

  2. But of course Dumbie most likely hates getting educated. It is the bane of conservatives.
    They like to live in the misery and just complain.

  3. One stop shopping for all your mutant animal, clown shoe and carnival needs.

  4. Why weren’t Nick Provenzano and Danielle Alward presenters?

  5. I should point out that most of my alphabet people bashing material, comes from my friendships with the upper social and income strata of the gay community.

    I stole “mutant animal” from my pal in Palm Springs.

  6. Here was yet another business opportunity the ‘UpRising Bakery’ could have taken advantage of.

  7. How Christian parents can explain Pride Month to their kids (scrubbed from the Web by Google)
    https://pjmedia.com/culture/paula-bolyard/2023/06/08/hate-speech-google-owned-blogger-censors-pastors-letter-to-parents-on-how-to-explain-pride-month-n1701614

    Dear CBC parents,

    We all wish we could shelter our children from the harmful and corrupt elements of our God-hating culture. Apart from living under a rock, this is becoming increasingly impossible. The homosexual-and-much-more agenda has increasingly intruded itself into every area of American life, from the media to sports to department stores to fast food restaurants and coffee shops.

    I am writing to try to help you talk to your children. I’ll write it as one side of a conversation. Use any part that helps you address matters that arise in your children’s world.

    You asked me what “gay” and “homosexual” and “trans” means, and why you suddenly see the word “Pride” everywhere. I’m glad you asked me! Let me try to explain it to you.

    We’ve read Genesis together. You know that God created the world as a perfect, wondrous place. And you know in Genesis 1 He created Adam and Eve without sin, or any of the awful things sin does when it gets inside someone. Adam and Eve loved God and were happy with themselves, with each other, and with their world.

    But then Satan came along in Genesis 3, and he got them to be dissatisfied with what God gave them. He tried to make God look like He didn’t care, and like He didn’t really want what was best for Adam and Eve. Satan tried to convince them that they knew better than God what was right and good, and what was best for them. Now you know, that is pride. Pride blows us up like balloons — all big and impressive looking, but with nothing but air inside. So in their pride, Adam and Eve rebelled against God.

    When they did, they died inside. The happiness and wholeness they had were gone. They weren’t happy with themselves, or each other, or their world — or God. So they had to find ways to try to make themselves feel happy, and to hide the guilt they had inside. They felt guilty, because they were guilty. They had sinned against God, their Maker.

    All those words you asked me about come out of this. They are all about people dead and broken by sin, still trying to find happiness by defiantly shaking their fist in God’s face and pretending they’re smarter than God.

    You remember that God made Adam and Eve, a man and a woman. That’s what sex means — it means being a man, or being a woman. People say “gender” today, but gender is really a grammar-term, about words, not people. “Sex” is the better word here. How many sexes did God make? That’s right: two. And when God saw it wasn’t good for the man Adam to be alone, what did God make for him, in Genesis 2? That’s right, a woman, named Eve. So God invented marriage, when a man wants to be with a woman in a special way, and a woman wants to be with a man — only the two of them, with each other.

    But all of us children of Adam are sinners, and sin ruins all our good desires and feelings that God gave us. Sin makes us want what we shouldn’t want, and it makes us not want what we should want.

    So some poor sad men don’t want to have a woman as their wife. They want another man. And some poor sad women don’t want a man, they want another woman. They are ashamed to want these things, they feel guilty. When we feel guilty, we can only do one of two things. We can go to God, confessing our sins and finding His forgiveness and help. Or we can pretend that we’re okay, and just keep holding to our sin. When people want to pretend these broken, wrong desires are okay, they call it being “gay,” pretending to be truly happy. But they don’t have peace with God, and they won’t be happy when God’s patience comes to an end and He judges them.

    And then there are other people so broken by sin that they aren’t willing to be what God made them. God made them a man or a woman — remember, He only made two sexes — but they want to pretend to be something else. Men want to pretend to be women, and women want to pretend to be men. Of course, we are what God made us, and no one can really become the opposite sex. They may try very hard, and even hurt themselves, but it just can’t be done. Still, sometimes we keep pretending, even though it really harms and shames us to do so. And when men or women pretend to be the opposite sex, they call it being “trans.”

    So they took the whole month of June to pretend together that all these wrong and harmful things are good, and they call June “Pride” month. Like the Bible says, their “glory is in their shame” (Philippians 3:19).

    But things are what God calls them, aren’t they? Not what we call them. So men are always just men, women are always just women, and we can only really marry someone of the opposite sex from us. A man marries a woman, a woman marries a man. Anything else can never really be marriage.

    Isn’t it sad to think about people so badly wanting things that are bad for them? Isn’t it awful that what people think will be good for them is really bad for them? But that’s what sin does. It does that to all of us! It’s why children want to disobey their parents. It’s why parents sometimes fight each other, or don’t do such a great job being parents. Sin is behind everything bad that we do or feel.

    But remember, God so loved sinful men and women that He sent Jesus to save sinners. Jesus can save any sinner! There is no sin too big for Jesus. He shed His blood so that His people could be forgiven and freed from every last sin of every size! When we turn from our sin and believe in Jesus, we can know that all our sins are forgiven. Isn’t that just the most wonderful news there is?

    Even more, Jesus died so that His people could be given new hearts, and so that God’s Holy Spirit could live in our hearts. So God removes our old heart that wanted awful and bad things and hated God, and He gives us a new heart. That new heart wants to love God, and believe Him, and walk in His ways. So all of us, whatever our sins were, can be made new people, children of God, learning to love what God loves and hate what God hates.

    So we don’t hate people who want bad things. We would be exactly the same if it weren’t for Jesus. We love people who don’t know Jesus, we pray for them, we want to help them, we want to tell them about Jesus. And when they believe, we accept them and love them and help them to learn to walk with Jesus, just like we’re doing.

    Thank you for asking me. Always feel free to ask me any questions you have!

    I pray this is helpful to you.

    Pastor Dan Phillips

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