SOCIAL SERVICE PROVIDERS: You Might Be All They’ve Got
Rural social service providers connect some of the nation’s most underserved residents to life-changing services. Providers who wish to serve the needs of GLBT people face structural barriers in the areas of transportation, personnel, and local financing. Additionally, they face homophobic attitudes often perpetuated by rural institutions. The experiences of dozens of other rural advocates have informed the content of this section.
How to Create a Successful Program
Use Technology… But Not Too Much
The Internet is a powerful tool in reaching isolated young people. Email, chat rooms, list-serves, and other web-based devices can connect rural gay youth to one another and aid in the distribution GLBT-friendly resources. While the Internet is perhaps the only avenue through which rural young people can access such information, a great “digital divide” exists between metropolitan and non-metropolitan internet access. Many rural communities are not reached by high-speed internet cable and many rural young people do not have home access to the internet. Additionally, the public facilities that rural students use to access the internet (schools, libraries, etc) often have homophobic policies in place that censor gay-friendly websites.
Connect Professional Service Providers
Local social service providers are professionals with the skills needed to effectively meet the needs of sexual minority youth. Social workers, counselors, and medical professionals in rural communities tend to be generalists. To best serve the needs of the gay and lesbian community, they must engage in targeted professional development. Unfortunately, the geographic isolation of rural service providers creates a barrier to access these continuing education opportunities. To remedy this problem rural service professionals must form local networks and act as peer educators to one another.
Address Transportation Issues
Public transportation is virtually non-existent throughout rural America. A successful program must provide access to transportation for its clients. To this end, some programs provide travel stipends, carpools, charter buses, and travel buddies. Of course, many mitigating factors influence the appropriateness of each strategy. Nonetheless, a successful program for rural gay youth cannot ignore transportation limitations.
Make Literature Available
Because not all rural students have access to the internet, they must access information in alternative ways. Literature must be made available to gay young people in ways that it can be accessed anonymously and discretely
Collect Data to Evaluate Programs
Very little data exists on the needs of rural gay young people. In turn, very little knowledge exists to inform programming for this population. In order to best carry out this work, existing programs must document their practices and collect valid and reliable data that not only inform future practice, but also justify effective public policies and targeted funding to rural gay youth.
Form Local Alliances
Rural people value their independence. Social services, if they exist, often go underutilized by rural residents who view such forms of assistance as a sign of weakness. Instead, rural people rely on informal, local networks of social support. Additionally, rural residents value local autonomy. Their communities tend to be close-knit and outsiders are not always warmly received. This appears to be especially true of large, national GLBT advocacy groups who are seen as combative and hostile by rural residents. For programming for GLBT youth to be effective in rural communities it must be locally-owned. The leadership should be “homegrown” and include at least one local straight ally who will likely be perceived by residents as non-threatening. More often than not, when these conditions are met rural programs are received positively by their communities. Do not assume hostility when working to form community alliances, but do be prepared to face objectors who fear losing independence and autonomy to a new program.
Partner with Community Colleges
Rural community colleges tie together disjoint communities across rural America. The students at rural community colleges collectively have contacts across entire regions. By focusing on community colleges as an environment for organizing, a much larger community can be reached. Gay/Straight Alliances at rural community colleges often draw younger students from local high schools as word-of-mouth communication proves to be entirely effective in spreading the word of their existence.
Maintain Confidentialty and Anonymity
The coming out process for gay students must be self-paced. Students who access services must not be identified until they choose to be. Because rural communities are small and tightly connected, closeted gay students fear that accessing local services will result in their sexual orientation being involuntarily disclosed to friends and family. Rural programs must work to alleviate these fears.
Be visible
Straight allies are invaluable to the GLBT community. Just as the presence of a visible, safe, GLBT-friendly adult can transform the life of a rural gay young person.