and finally as the summer winds down the back to school season can be an especially fraught time for lgbtq Youth and their families from book bands to new gender identity policies many report facing hostility in schools places that have largely been considered a safe haven well a recent report from the Human Rights Campaign found that nearly half 46 percent of lgbtq Youth felt unsafe at school more than half reported being bullied and targeted specifically because of their gender and sexual identity there are critical issues that are affecting their mental health for more I'm joined by Jen Velton director of trauma services at Care Plus NJ Jen it's great to talk to you I think first I would just like to get to the root of this which is why it is that lgbtq plus kids have such lower rates such poorer rates of Mental Health store so really the the big issue when it comes to folks who identify as lgbtq plus does not have to do with the fact that they identify as lgbtq plus it has to do with will they be accepted loved and honored for who they are and that is it holds true across School uh with friends with family so for youth who potentially face rejection by schools family friends they have an innate fear right and anxiety so when we look at New Jersey where several school districts had put in place policies that are now on hold and the Attorney General's office of course is pursuing legally policies uh that outed the gender identity of students what type of atmosphere does that create because you've talked about this quite a bit in schools being safe havens for kids right so School is is a youth's job right that's where they go they're there from you know 8 A.M until 3 P.M whatever the hours of their particular School are and we as adults can conceptualize going to a hostile work environment how that would take a toll on our mental health so we have to put that same mindset when we're talking about youth going to school which is their job when they're younger and not feeling safe nor accepted in that environment that has a detrimental impact for youth it's really hard to even study we have done a lot of studies around this topic self-report studies of Youth explaining just how detrimental outing policies would be and New Jersey does have a good track record with this compared to other states which is why we're happy to see the most recent rulings against outing students what do we know uh from you know statistics that are reported from those who have you know given that information out about whether not these students do in fact meet get met with uh you know their own hostility at home when they do leave school so the best way to think about this is if you have a supportive home life you're already going to know if your youth identifies as lgbtq plus those are not the youth that were worried about their families finding out because they already felt safe and supported so they were already sharing with their families um for the Youth that that's not the reality they would not be sharing that you know with their home so when folks come out they begin a process that we call Selective disclosure which is telling folks that they feel the safest first and seeing their reaction with youth a lot of that is them telling their peers and then generally what we see is they start to tell certain family members as well as select School folks that they feel comfortable and supported by but if your youth feels trusted and supported at home they'll come out you know to the parents to the Guardians they would have already done that so these are the very vulnerable youth that for whatever reasons feel like their home life is not safe enough to support this Jen Velton is the director of trauma services at Care Plus NJ Jen thank you so much thank you so much [Music]