The purpose or basis of the project was our experience that veterans are more likely to accept support from somebody who understands them, their military culture and their service. We thought that if we took that one step further, maybe veterans who identified as LGBTQ2S+ would appreciate receiving services from somebody within their own community.
The funding we received allowed us to hire a part-time, qualified staff person from the LGBT community.
We identified veterans with our intake form that every veteran completes. We do ask veterans if they want to disclose their sexual orientation or gender identity. In the event they do disclose it, they are offered the opportunity to receive services from that staff person.
During that year, we found that 31 veterans disclosed to us that they were from the LGBTQ community. Of those 31, 29 actually declined the offer to receive support from a staff person. During the initial intake phase, by the time they felt comfortable enough to kind of share their story, they were already engaged with a staff person, or a volunteer, so their preference was to stick with that person rather than have to repeat their story.
We didn't really get into a lot of research when we were doing our pilot project, but we did find it very interesting that when a veteran is in crisis, they just want to receive support from somebody who understands them and is going to treat them with respect and not be judgmental.
I guess the end result of the pilot project was that these veterans were willing to accept support from anybody who was prepared to help in a respectful way.
The other thing—