Carrier Sekani Family Services (CSFS) will soon be launching a program dedicated to the LGBTQ2+ community within its member First Nations.
The program would be a health and wellness resource for LGBTQ2+ community within the CSFS member nations. Currently the program is in its development phase however, CSFS is hoping to make it available soon to people. Hunter Brazzoni, who is part of the special projects team with CSFS told Lakes District News that the program would be in the form of a website for now but they are hoping to offer support offline as well in the future.
“We had hoped to do a more involved program with actually being present in the communities we want to serve but due to Covid, right now it is mainly going to be over the phone and online. And we will potentially change that as the social distancing rules change,” said Brazzoni adding that it would however depend on the community’s needs and what format would be more useful to them, based on their feedback.
In its present format, the program will offer options to reach a counsellor through phone calls, video calls and online chat. The information and conversation between the people and the counsellor would be completely private and only accessible to the counsellor. The website will also have other resources and would include resources or links to outside support.
“We are still in development and the program hasn’t launched yet but we hope in the future that we host other things like events, based on the input from the community as the program progresses,” said Brazzoni.
CSFS hopes to launch a dedicated website for this program, by the end of July. However, Brazzoni said that the program is welcoming community ideas and inputs from the get-go.
Priyanka Ketkar
Multimedia journalist
@PriyankaKetkar
priyanka.ketkar@ldnews.net
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