by Jessica Carreras
Daniel Cuschieri is a social work student at Wayne State University and intern at Affirmations LGBT community center. The 30-year-old Berkley resident hopes to eventually work as a counselor for LGBT people.
1) What sparked your interest in working with the LGBT community?
When I made the decision to pursue a career in social work, I knew I wanted to help serve the LGBT community.
Feelings of isolation and anxiety have always been a certain rite of passage for anyone who has ever come out, and my experience really wasn't any different, but I was lucky enough to have the support of an amazing family who loved and accepted me. Unfortunately, we know this is not the typical experience. Our LGBT youth are at serious risk, and bullying and suicide are preventable. I want to provide the support that helped me survive. The LGBT community is always in need of good advocates and I just want to contribute to the effort.
2) What brought you to Affirmations as an intern?
Despite being a member of the community, I really didn't have an impressive amount of outward knowledge regarding the complex issues that affect LGBT individuals. I wanted a crash course on the LGBT community and I knew there was no better place to gain that experience.
Affirmations isn't only the largest LGBT organization in Michigan, but also one of the 10 largest centers in the U.S. Our community is so rich with diversity and Affirmations really does try to provide something for everyone. I'd been dying to land an internship with Affirmations, so when the opportunity finally presented itself, I was thrilled!
3) Tell me about the projects you're currently involved in.
I'm currently involved with the LGBT Coalition on Aging. There are a lot of great people involved and they're all working to provide resources and support for LGBT older adults. We're planning our first community forum on Nov. 17 at Affirmations, which is really exciting, and we're really hoping that the older members of the LGBT community come out and help provide us with great discussion!
At Wayne State, I'm interested in expanding the counseling program curriculum to further explore LGBT issues of diversity and how they impact professional practice. Unless you specialize in LGBT care or seek it out, many counselors have very limited experience with LGBT individuals, especially with members of the trans community. Even among the most educated, misconceptions and misinformation are true dangers to professional practice, and care providers need to be better equipped to provide the best care.
I'm also in the process of developing some program proposals to fill in some programming gaps at Affirmations. We know we can't do everything for everyone, but the great thing about Affirmations is how they empower the community they serve. They are constantly evolving their programs to better suit the needs of the community and they rely heavily on community participation to realize goals and achieve success.
4) What do you hope to gain from your time at Affirmations?
I want to gain some experience working with as many different members of the LGBT community as possible. I'm hoping that my time there will help me identify the needs of the community that I wasn't aware of before.
It's kind of funny how our community is so diverse but for the most part we tend to keep to ourselves. Engaging casually in a social environment is entirely different from understanding how certain complicated issues impact people's lives in a major way. I want to be good at what I do, and I need a real clear picture of what different people experience to do that. I need as much exposure as possible to be a stronger advocate.
5) How do you hope to continue your LGBT advocacy work in the future?
I know that I definitely want to focus on providing services for members of the trans community. Many trans individuals, especially trans youth, cannot afford the counseling they need to receive the letter necessary to change their identification. They typically have a hard time in traditional school settings and often struggle for employment, and there are many challenges I had never even thought about before.
I also want to help beef up the resources and support services available to our LGBT youth, especially in our schools. We all need to do our parts. It can be as simple as supporting organizations like The Trevor Project, or just going into your community to raise awareness.
Get involved with Affirmations at http://www.goaffirmations.org.
