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American Journal of Community Psychology, Vol. 31, Nos. 3/4, June 2003 (°
C 2003)

An Applied Collaborative Training Program for Graduate

Students in Community Psychology: A Case Study of a
Community Project Working With Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual,
Transgender, and Questioning Youth

Jeanne L. Stanley1

The following case study offers a detailed description of a university–organization partner-

ship, the basis for a collaborative outreach training program between community psychology
graduate students and a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) youth
center. Students and youth collaborated over 2 semesters on the creation of a social meet-
ing venue within an urban LGBTQ youth-operated center as part of a community outreach
project in the students’ course in community psychology. Semistructured interviews with the
youth and the students provide first-person accounts and perspectives of the project as an
effective learning tool for training students in community psychology and in working with
LGBTQ youth.

KEY WORDS: lesbian; gay; bisexual; applied; training; community.

INTRODUCTION of the study is to analyze the impact and effective-

Community psychologists have been instrumen-
tal in moving psychology forward, particularly in the
following two areas: Moving psychology out of the
clinic and classroom into the community itself and
second, providing services to underserved and dis-
enfranchised communities. In conjunction with class-
room learning, having students take part in an ap-
plied outreach project in a community setting with an
underserved population expands their learning and
knowledge base.
The following case study examines such an in-
tegrative community outreach project undertaken
by community psychology graduate students who
worked closely with the underserved population of
lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning
(LGBTQ) youth at a community center. The purpose
1 To
whom correspondence should be addressed at Psychology
in Education, Graduate School of Education, University of
Pennsylvania, 3700 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
19104; e-mail: jstanley@gse.upenn.edu.
ness of a collaborative community outreach training
tool for community psychology students. Interviews
were conducted with both the youth and the students
in order to analyze the effectiveness of the training
program.
The course’s community outreach training pro-
gram will be described as well as the rationale for
selecting this particular community project. A de-
tailed description of the 2-year project from inception
to completion follows. The interview process for the
case study is described followed by a discussion of the
learning themes for youth and students culled from
interviews.
Description of the Community Outreach Program
The community outreach program is an inte-
gral component of a graduate-level course entitled
“Contemporary Issues in Community Psychology.”
The course is offered as an elective in an ur-
ban ivy-league graduate psychology program. The

253 0091-0562/03/0600-0253/0 °
C 2003 Plenum Publishing Corporation
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254
community outreach program is a semester-long
assignment that provides students with first-hand
training and experience in the implementation of a
community project. The learning objectives of the
program are three-fold: (a) To create opportunities
to apply the concepts and theories of community psy-
chology in a community-based learning environment;
(b) To gain experience over an extended time work-
ing with an underserved population in the commu-
nity; and (c) To provide support and learning op-
portunities for individuals in the community through
their interactions with the community psychology
students.
Early in the course, students are given descrip-
tions of the various sites, including the population
served, their mission statements, and if available, ex-
amples of past projects performed at the sites. Stu-
dents rank-order their choices of three to four dif-
ferent community outreach sites. The professor then
makes the final match, grouping students and assign-
ing them to a site based on the students’ interests and
the site’s needs. Each group consists of approximately
five to seven students.
Once students are assigned to a site, the first task
is to begin meeting as a group and then to contact
the designated liaison at the site to set up an initial
meeting. The liaison is often the director, associate
director, or volunteer coordinator. This initial meet-
ing is to establish a relationship and receive approval
by the site. Students then perform an initial needs
assessment of the site with members of the site’s com-
munity, work with site members to select a relevant
and feasible project, work together to implement the
project, and then evaluate the project at the end of the
semester.
Formal and informal feedback for each group is
an integral part of the semester-long project. Formal
feedback comes in the form of two presentations to
the class. The first presentation is based on the stu-
dents’ written prospectus for the project. The stu-
dents describe the target site, their collaborative expe-
riences with the site thus far and outline the proposed
project. During the presentations, other students in
the class, teaching assistants, and the professor take
on the role of consultants for the group offering feed-
back, tying in course material, and assisting the group
in planning a realistic and feasible project. At the end
of the semester the second formal presentation in-
volves students describing their learning experiences,
how the concepts of community psychology applied
to their real-life setting, and their overall evaluation
of the project. Informal feedback sessions occur dur-
15:53 Style file version May 31, 2002
Stanley
ing the weekly course, often in relation to the topic at
hand, and through additional meetings with the pro-
fessor outside of class. This ongoing feedback assists
students in adjusting and modifying their work at the
site and addressing group dynamics both in the stu-
dent group and in their interactions with individuals
at the site.
THE CASE STUDY
At the end of the 3rd year of the Community
Outreach Training Program, the professor sought to
obtain a more in-depth understanding of the impact
of the assignment based on the learning objectives of
the project. This became the goal of this study.
The project of focus was known as the Café
project, which took place in an urban LGBTQ youth-
operated center. This project was chosen for the case
study for the following reasons: (a) The project had
continued over two consecutive spring semesters, of-
fering an extended understanding of the project with
two separate groups of students; (b) The site holds
a tremendous reputation in the LGBTQ community
in terms of its provision of outreach intervention and
prevention services to sexual minority youth, thereby
offering the potential for in-depth learning about the
provision of psychological services based on the ap-
plied practice of community psychology; and (c) The
project focused on students working closely with the
underserved population of LGBTQ youth. The last
factor is particularly salient because community psy-
chology has been moving to address LGBTQ issues
and, as D’Augelli (1989) points out, “Both the ideol-
ogy of community psychology and its many interven-
tion models provide powerful tools for collaborating
with lesbians and gay men in developing their helping
communities.” This collaboration provided students
in community psychology with first-hand knowledge
about working with the underserved population of
LGBTQ youth.
The three learning objectives of the community
outreach training program set the focus of the study.
First, did the community outreach program create op-
portunities for students to understand and apply the
course’s concepts and theories of community psychol-
ogy through the project known as the Café at the
LGBTQ youth center? Second, did students gain ex-
perience over an extended period of time working
with the underserved population of LGBTQ youth?
Third, did the community outreach program provide
support and learning opportunities for individuals in
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Applied Community Training
the community through their interactions with the
community psychology students?
Participants in the Interviews
A total of 10 interviews, including five students
and five youth from the center, were conducted for
the case study. The selection of the students and youth
for the interviews was based on obtaining a represen-
tative sample of the total participated pool over the
2-year period. The five students and five youth who
volunteered to participate in the interview accurately
represented the total pool of participants for both stu-
dents and youth in terms of gender, age, ethnicity, race,
and sexual orientation.
A representative sample of five students (of
the 11 students involved in the Cafe project) were
contacted by the researcher/professor and asked if
they wanted to participate in the study. Two were
part of the project in the 1st year of the project, three
were from the 2nd year. All five students agreed to
participate in the interview. The five student inter-
viewees consisted of three female and two males,
ranging in age at the time of the interview from 24-
to 30- years old. One student was African American,
one Asian, one Middle Eastern, and three Caucasian.
During the project none of the students openly
identified as a sexual minority although near the end
of the project one student self-identified as bisexual
to some of students in the group and during the
interview process itself, a second student identified as
bisexual.
The researcher/professor recruited youth partic-
ipants by asking for volunteers. Of the approximately
20 youth who had taken part in the project, five came
forward to volunteer. Two were females and three
males, ranging in age from 16 to 24 at the time of
the interview. (note: at the time of the interview, one
youth was older than the age limit for the center, but
still volunteered at the center and offered to be in-
terviewed). Three were African American and two
Caucasian. Two identified as lesbian, two gay, and one
transgendered and gay. Two of the youth had partic-
ipated both years in the project and three during the
2nd year.
The Interview Process
All participants were informed that the interview
would focus on their experience of the Café project.
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255
The interview consisted of a semistructured protocol
followed by open-ended questions that emerged from
the flow of the interviews. The set interview questions
offered structure and consistency and the open-ended
questions were used for follow-up or to probe more
in-depth issues that arose in the context of the in-
terview. This format ensured that similar information
was collected across individuals but also offered an ex-
ploratory component in which unexpected and new
concepts could emerge. This same format was used
for both the students and the youth. All participants
were informed that they could cease the interview
at any time, although all 10 completed the interview.
The interviews were approximately 1-hr in length and
were audio-taped following the written consent of
the participants. All interviews with the youth took
place at the center in a meeting room on a one-to-one
basis between the interviewer and youth. The inter-
views with the students took place in various offices on
campus.
The professor served as interviewer, transcriber,
and author of the study. Although these multiple
roles may have confounded the study, it is important
to note that the conditions at the time of the inter-
views enhanced the likelihood of a relatively unbi-
ased outcome. First, the interviews with the students
took place after they completed the course, received
a course grade, graduated from the program, and re-
ceived their degree. Second, there was a sense of open-
ness, honesty, and candor apparent in the interviews,
which were attributable to the longevity of the re-
lationship with the students throughout the project.
Third, the students’ statements in the interviews cor-
responded with what they had said throughout the
process of the course, lending credence to the reli-
ability of the data. In terms of the youth, the au-
thor sat in on weekly “rap session” groups in order
to allow the youth to get to know her. Youth who
participated were assured that what they said would
not have an influence on the student’s grades, since
the course was completed, the students had gradu-
ated, and their statements would not have an impact
upon the consideration of the center as a site in the
future.
DATA ANALYSIS
The audiotapes were transcribed, coded, and
sorted according to salient themes that emerged in-
ductively from the data. The themes and patterns
were issues that arose consistently across the data.
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256
Throughout the analysis, both consistencies as well as
inconsistencies were explored providing a richer un-
derstanding of the data.
SITE AND PROJECT DESCRIPTION
The following is a description of the site and
the Café project itself over the 2-year period. Por-
tions of the interviews with the youth and students
are interspersed to better describe the setting and the
project.
Site Description
The site at which the project took place is an
urban, nonprofit youth-run community center for
lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning
youth. The center services LGBTQ youth ranging in
age from 12 to 23, with an average age of 17. The at-
tendees are fairly evenly representative in terms of
gender and ratio of Caucasian to youth of color (with
the predominate youth of color being African Amer-
ican). The center began in 1993 as an after-school
program and by 1996 was so well attended, that it
moved to a four-story brownstone becoming a full-
time LGBTQ youth center. The need for the cen-
ter has increased because youth are coming out at
younger ages than ever before while LGBTQ run-
away and “throw-away youth” (teens rejected by their
family and made to leave home) continue to be on the
rise. It is unique from other youth oriented centers in
that it is run by a youth-selected board who, along with
the center’s director, oversee the planning, implemen-
tation, and direction of the center. The goal of the
center is to create opportunities for youth to connect
with and receive support and affirmation from other
youth and adults. As the center’s literature states, its
mission is to “counteract the prejudice and oppression
faced by LGBTQ youth who are significantly unrec-
ognized, underserved, and neglected by social service
agencies.” The center provides an extensive range of
activities and opportunities for youth including tu-
toring, daily study times, workshops, movies, com-
munity meetings, choir, and an acting troupe. Both
peer and professional counseling are offered on site
in the form of individual and group counseling. Un-
structured time and social activities are also an in-
tegral part of the center where youth interact with
each other, as well as the adults who serve as staff and
volunteers.
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Stanley
Project Description and Rationale
The project selected became known as the
“Café” following initial meetings and discussions with
the youth. Initially, the students entered with their
own list of potential projects and soon learned the im-
portance of listening and learning about what the peo-
ple in the community need, rather than assuming that
they already knew. The youth quickly negotiated their
own project, which was to create a social gathering
space within the LGBTQ youth center to be known
as the Café. For two consecutive spring semesters, stu-
dents and youth worked together to raise funds, de-
sign, and construct the space.
The project was selected because of the absence
of an informal space within the center itself for the
youth to gather and socialize on an extended basis.
One youth interviewed described the importance of
having such a social gathering space at the center:
The center is sort of a little bit of everything. All
the things that people can’t necessarily get outside
of here in a safe environment. You can get support
here, you can socialize here and that’s what the Café
was about . . . so if we can provide another space, even
within the building where people can still spend time
with the people they like, it is still providing a safe
space, and that is what we do.
A student also described the importance of creating
a safe, social space for the youth in the center:
A space where they can be open, move through their
developmental process, be young curious teens in the
exact way their heterosexual peers are doing their
developmental thing down the street in a safe Café.
Never having the opportunity to have a community-
based social gathering space, I mean, that is where
half of our social learning happens when we are teens.
So helping them create that space for themselves was
important.
The Café could, therefore, serve as a social support
venue for the LGBTQ youth and serve as a buffer
against external societal homophobia and heterosex-
ism. Ingram, Bouthillette, and Retter (1997) discussed
the importance of physical space being a factor that af-
fords LGBTQ individuals the opportunity to combat
marginalization from the mainstream by developing
and expanding opportunities for connection. Many
authors agree that outlets for social support and cre-
ating opportunities for connection are imperative for
LGBTQ individuals (Hershberger & D’Augelli, 1995;
Hollander, 2000; Morrow, 1993; Nesmith, Burton, &
Cosgrove, 1999; Oswald, 2000; Robinson, 1994; Savin-
Williams, 1995; Tharinger & Wells, 2000). Such
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opportunities for connection are not an option for
all LGBTQ individuals because of factors such as
one’s degree of openness about his/her sexual ori-
entation, acceptance (i.e. welcoming to transgender
individuals), and availability (i.e. urban versus rural
settings).
Youth have even less access to such space be-
cause of such factors as age limits, transportation, ex-
penses, and the reality that there are few spaces open
to and welcoming LGBTQ youth. Although today’s
LGBTQ youth may have more access to cognitively
oriented forms of community such as literature, me-
dia, and the Internet than their predecessors (Desert,
1997; Hershberger & D’Augelli, 2000; Osborn, 1996),
these virtual, abstract forms of community lack face-
to-face “real time” interaction. Common physical
meeting spaces for youth, such as the Café, are needed
to provide access and age-appropriate experiences
that offer reciprocal exchange among LGBTQ youth
(Nesmith et al., 1999). Such exchanges are vital for
youth trying to understand their identity given that
sexual orientation is not constructed in isolation, but
rather within the context of specific communities and
relationships within those communities (Esterberg,
1997). Such safe, supportive, and interactive social
space is an essential aspect of community connection
for LGBTQ youth.
It was agreed that the Café would be located in a
large room on the first floor of the center that had pre-
viously not been used because of the significant physi-
cal damage to the space. Some of the youth described
the room as “oppressive” because part of the ceil-
ing had fallen down, the floor had gaping holes, and
the walls were damaged by years of neglect. Off the
room was an outside door leading to a large courtyard
surrounded by neighboring buildings. The courtyard
itself was in disrepair, with trash, broken glass, and
weeds overtaking the bricked yard. With the project
and location set, the students and youth began the task
of creating the Café. The following section describes
the project over the 2-year period.
First Year of the Project: Fundraising for the Café
Once the focus of the project, the Café, was
agreed upon, the students set a multitude of goals
that were not feasible to reach because of the time
constraints of the semester and resources. Here, the
feedback from other class members in their role as
consultants, provided recommendations leading to a
more attainable project.
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257
The 1st year the youth and the students agreed
to focus on the task of working with the youth to
fundraise for the construction of the Café. As one
student described:
It was good that we scaled it down, because when we
scaled it down to just fundraising, we were able to
back up from it enough to see that it was important
not just to raise the funds, but to leave the skills of
fundraising, and of making connections, and of get-
ting the center’s name out there in a way that they
could have some ongoing connections. So rather than
just leaving them with a dollar amount, we left them
with a skill and a way to get more.
The students wanted to collaborate with the youth
rather than just lead them through the various strate-
gies and procedures involved in fundraising so that
the youth would have a knowledge base well after the
students were no longer involved.
The team of students and youth began by creating
interest among the other youth at the center in order
to generate volunteers. One youth later recalled: “The
first problem was organizing everybody. That’s where
the students came in and involved everybody. They
organized a lot of stuff like fundraisers and ignited the
flame.” In order to organize the youth, get volunteers,
and help sustain the project after the students left,
two youth were appointed to serve as the managers
of the Café. In order to help muster enthusiasm for the
project, the managers and the students held activities
such as a contest for the youth to name the new social
space. From these outreach efforts, a working team,
consisting of both youth and the students, was formed.
The next phase of the project focused on planning
and implementing various types of fundraising activ-
ities. Some were event-specific, such as when a group
of youth and students set up an information and do-
nation table on the main walkway of the university
campus. During this event they were able to educate
the university community about the needs of LGBTQ
youth and the center as well as generate donations.
Other events included trips into the local community
to solicit funds and donations. As the semester came
to an end, the students met with the youth and the
class as consultants to evaluate their work thus far
and generate future plans for the completion of the
project.
Second Year of the Project: Construction of the Café
Similar to the 1st year, the students began with
high expectations that needed to be scaled down
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258
to attainable goals. One student in the group later
recalled:
The group wanted to do so much and I knew it wasn’t
going to happen and I was really glad to get into the
classroom and get that feedback from everyone else.
I think the feedback made everything more realistic.
Everyone else started to realize this was going to be
a big undertaking and that we needed to set the goals
a little more realistically.
The goal was to now use the funds and donations gen-
erated over the 1st year to construct the Café. The
new group of students came in and built on the first
stage of the project and took the project through the
building and completion phase of the Café project.
The 2nd-year students wrote in their prospectus for
the project:
. . . we brainstormed a list of concrete and realistic
goals with the teens that we hope to achieve by the
end of the project. Since the Café is their brainchild,
we want them to take ownership of the project. We
are well aware that we will be leaving the center in
April and want them to be able to continue running
it once we are gone. They need to feel as if this is their
project and we feel our role should be of helpers to
aid in the organization and logistical aspects of the
Café.
Even more youth than the prior year came forth
to volunteer to work on the Café project. The stu-
dents’ reentry into the project rejuvenated the focus
on the project. One youth said: “People [the youth]
are out doing so many things, they need someone out-
side to be like, ‘Okay, we are going to do the Café.’
And we would be like, ‘Okay, I’ll set this time to
do it.’ ” Renovations included the youth and the stu-
dents repairing the ceiling and walls, cleaning, paint-
ing, and building. The youth and students spent time
not only working on the room but taking trips to pur-
chase building supplies and taking breaks together.
One youth recalled:
We would be having these family-style dinners during
our break with the students. We would put all the
tables together and they would be joking with us and
us with them. They just made it so we liked them.
They knew how to make people open up. Just the
way they talked to you made you feel that they had
respect for you.
During that semester, the team of youth and stu-
dents made remarkable progress on the Café. The
room was completely renovated and the team used
the donation of three bank teller booths and con-
verted them into a long coffee bar for patrons. The
youth displayed their own artwork on the walls, cre-
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Stanley
ating a rotating gallery of youth’s work. The team also
created a portable stage that could be used as a stage
for the acting troupe or poetry readings, or as a run-
way for “voguing.” Finally the team cleared the entire
courtyard of years of debris and weeds.
The completed project was presented at the
Café’s grand opening celebration during the city’s
week-long LGBTQ pride festival. During the grand
opening celebration, a barbecue for the youth, staff,
students, and visitors was held in the rejuvenated
courtyard.
AREAS OF STUDENT LEARNING FROM THE
PROJECT: THE REALITIES OF APPLYING
THEORY AND CONCEPTS OF COMMUNITY
PSYCHOLOGY IN THE COMMUNITY
The first learning objective of the community out-
reach training program was to create opportunities to
apply the concepts and theories of community psy-
chology. This was the most frequently discussed as-
pect of the project among the students interviewed.
One student stated:
I remember being excited when we came down to
do the project and we were like, “Oh, this is how
this fits,” and really seeing it from a different kind
of view. I mean I definitely think anytime you read
something and then have a practical experience, es-
pecially when you are in graduate school and you
have so much to read, you then “get it” and it always
helps.
They also noted that it was one thing to comprehend
concepts of community psychology such as “collab-
orating with a community” and “giving psychology
away” but another to apply in real life situations. This
was evident from the beginning of the project when
the students entered with their own list of projects
and hence their own agenda. They soon learned the
importance of listening and learning from community
members as the youth’s needs set the foundation for
the Café project.
A similar situation occurred during the 2nd year
of the project. Many of the youth perceived that one
of the students was trying to control the project by
making all the key decisions for the design of the Café.
The student had asked for feedback from one youth
regarding the design layout for the room, but tension
soon culminated as other youth felt they were not part
of the process. One youth surmised that, “He had the
first part, the plan, but he missed the second part,
the whole community of the thing.” One of the oldest
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youth on the project soon confronted the student. He
recalled:
He [the student] and I came to words at one
point because I didn’t appreciate his attitude toward
the youth and that he wasn’t allowing them to par-
ticipate enough. I said, “If this is a joint project,
then you have to work with them.” He wasn’t
allowing them to do anything . . . The tension for me
was that I felt that he was just showing the youth,
“Okay, you are helpless to do anything without me,
so sit back, let me finish and I will be on my way.”
. . . that is what led up to me saying “Are you go-
ing to let anyone else do anything? You know some-
thing, you are going to be gone and we are still going
to need to work on this project and none of the
youth know crap if they aren’t allowed to touch a
hammer.”
The youth felt that the student soon became part of
the group. The youth who confronted the student
recalled:
I think he learned in the end that there is a time when
you empower someone and there is a time when you
do it for them and you have to decide when that time
is. He learned that this project was about empowering
people to do what they need, it wasn’t about doing it
for them. He took away that he can’t do things alone
and that there is no ‘I’ in teamwork . . . I think he also
realized that we were people and before he just saw
us as a project.
The student himself, when looking back at the
experience, stated:
I think I hadn’t worked with adolescents for a while
so it got me back in touch with that mindset. Kind of
reminding me where I need to set my expectations.
Remembering that these are not just a bunch of kids.
That they have ideas and plans for what they want to
do and if you give them the opportunity, they’ll run
with it.
Students Learning About Their Own Internalized
Homo/Bi/Transphobia
Many of the students stated they became
aware of their own internalized homo/bi/transphobia
(H/B/T phobia) for the first time during their time at
the center. One student recounted her first awareness
of her own internalized H/B/T phobia the first time
she visited the center and was asked to sign-in at the
front desk.
There is no way you can go into this project with-
out learning something. I mean you can’t. You learn
something about yourself, about the people your
work with and the adolescents. And what you learn
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259
about yourself you may not always like, which is okay
because if you didn’t know, then you couldn’t work
on it and try to fix it. I think what bothered me ini-
tially was that I think I talked a good game in the
beginning, like about my appreciation for this and
that but when I was there and signed my name in
the book . . . my first instinct was, “Am I comfort-
able with that?” I think that I was probably like,
“Whew, I’m not quite as comfortable as I thought
I was.”
Another student who self-identified as a sex-
ual minority, stated that the experiences and inter-
actions with the youth helped her become aware
of her own internalized H/B/T phobia. She felt
so motivated by the openness of the youth, whom
she saw as being less burdened by not having to hide
such an integral part of themselves, that she self-
disclosed her sexual identity for the first time to two
other students involved in the project. The student
recalled:
It made me feel more comfortable coming out to
some friends who I was close to who were on the
project. Realizing that when I moved out here I had
my first experiences in homophobia that put me in
the closet. So, being able to be in a safe space like
the [center], as much as it wasn’t necessarily a space
for me, it was a space for me to experience my col-
leagues and see that they were cool with everybody
else.
For another student, her experiences with the
project solidified her disagreement with what she per-
ceived as her religion’s H/B/T phobic stance against
any sexual orientation other than heterosexuality. Her
experiences at the center made her face the cogni-
tive dissonance she had been experiencing surround-
ing her beliefs of inclusion and her religion’s stance
toward condemning homo/bi/transsexuality. The stu-
dent recalled:
I’m thinking, you know, judgment day, should
there be one, where you have to go and answer
for certain things, do you really want to go up there
and be in line and answer the question why you
treated that person like that? What is your answer
going to be? If you honestly think about it, what
is your answer going to be and is it a good enough
answer? And then I thought about it and it wasn’t.
It wasn’t, just because you chose to love somebody
that is the same sex as you. I mean, I don’t un-
derstand why there are all these criteria that pre-
vent somebody for doing something for someone
and I don’t think it’s supposed to be like that. I
don’t remember Jesus walking anywhere and saying,
“Tell me something about yourself before I heal
you.”
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260
Students Learning About Sexual
Orientation/Sexual Identity
Many students said their preconceived notions of
sexual orientation and identity were changed through
their time at the center. The students learned more
about the multidimensional aspects and fluidity of
sexuality: For example, one student recalled: “A per-
son may identify themselves as being gay. If it’s a man,
that person may be attracted to a female too and may
flirt with a girl. You know, you start to scratch your
head and wonder what’s going on here.” He went on
to describe how he learned that labels and terms often
do not adequately describe a person’s sexual identity.
Rather a person’s own description of how he or she
identifies offers the most accurate understanding of
that person’s sexuality. Another student stated, “The
actual experience of being around the youth, was re-
alizing that I had certain assumptions even though I
was within the LGBTQ range myself.”
Discussions with the youth and each other about
sexual identity led some students to examine their
own understanding of their sexual identity. One stu-
dent recalled:
I chose the [center] actually, partly because I was at
a part in my life where I was trying to decide some of
what my orientation was and that was a way for me
to sort of get a look at the community but not really
have to land both feet in the community. It was a way
to sort of walk in the back door. What I learned was
it wasn’t nearly so terrifying to walk in someplace
like that and that I don’t need to go through the back
door.
Learning Regarding the Unique Issues Facing
LGBTQ Youth
The students discussed how they learned that
LGBTQ youth deal with the usual angst, issues, and
growth experiences as their heterosexual adolescent
counterparts, but that these are often compounded
by additional pressures related to their sexual orien-
tation. They learned from the youth about what it is
like to face coming out to friends and family, rejection
from family and friends, having one’s sexual orienta-
tion disclosed before one is ready, and experiences
with violence because of one’s sexual orientation. As
trust between the youth and students built over the
semester, the students asked questions and learned
even more from the youth. One youth recalled:
The students learned a lot. They asked a lot of intelli-
gent questions. They asked what it felt like being gay
15:53 Style file version May 31, 2002
Stanley
instead of asking, “What made you gay?” They asked
questions like, “When did you realize, when did it ac-
tually come about that you decided to voice it?” I
think they took a better understanding of gay issues
back with them. They were also exposed to lots of
different types of people here. There are lots of kids
who come from different economic backgrounds, dif-
ferent racial backgrounds and different social stand-
ings. They are all kind of dumped in together and the
students interacted with each one of them and that is
definitely a benefit to have, being comfortable where
you can interact and socialize with people different
than yourself and other than you are use to.
The students also became privy to the youths’
impressions of the LGBTQ community. One youth
recalled:
We sat around there one day, all the youth, discussing
gay issues in front of them [the students] and it wasn’t
any different for us because we always do it. That time
we were talking about the lack of gay youth events in
the city and why the adult gay community excludes a
lot of the youth. So they found out what our stance
on the older gay community was. They never would
have known that. They would have thought, “Oh, you
are all one community,” and they would not have un-
derstood. The students found out that there are divi-
sions even between the gay and lesbian community.
They are technically two separate communities and
the transgender community is all but completely ex-
cluded.
Students Learning From Youth About How Mental
Health Providers Can Assist LGBTQ Youth
The youth discussed with the students what they
believed mental health providers should keep in mind
when working with LGBTQ youth. The youth recom-
mended that counselors not try too hard, be them-
selves, and ask questions. One youth said she told the
students that:
It’s okay to ask questions. A lot of people seem to be
afraid to ask us. I don’t know, maybe they think we
are going to be offended. If we are offended, we will
just say, “I don’t want to answer, go ask your mother.”
We all have backbones here and we are use to being
treated badly so if someone is honestly not trying to
be crude, not trying to be rude, I think we’ll pick up
on it, and we’ll answer it.
The youth also cautioned the students as mental
health providers to avoid the stereotype that just be-
cause a person is LGBTQ, they have problems. One
youth said:
Being gay doesn’t exactly give you a problem. It’s
more so how people perceive you to be just because
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American Journal of Community Psychology [ajcp] pp860-ajcp-465917
Applied Community Training
you are gay that sort of brings up these problems. Peo-
ple aren’t always uncomfortable with themselves, you
know that people can be real happy being gay, most
of us are happy. There are other things that make us
unhappy. Maybe the way someone could have yelled
us something on the street. That doesn’t necessarily
mean I am ashamed of being gay. It’s that I am pissed
off that someone had the nerve to open their mouth
and say something rude to me in an attempt to make
me uncomfortable with who I am. There are a lot of
elements that go into why gay youth need counseling
or may have problems. So it is not necessarily be-
cause they are gay youth. It is because they are youth
in general and that they have problems just like ev-
erybody else. It’s adolescence, which I hear can be
difficult (she laughs).
Students said they also learned that in order to be ef-
fective mental health providers, they need to examine
their own presumptions and attitudes toward homo-
sexuality, bisexuality, and transgendered individuals.
One student stated:
I think first and foremost you need to keep an open
mind. You may have this idea, this concept of how
a LGBTQ person would act, would look like and in
reality it might be the exact opposite.
Supervision and consultation was also cited as an im-
portant aspect of being an effective mental health
provider. Another student stated she learned:
Before going in to do anything, don’t just think about
what your presumptions are but really talk about
them. Put it out there, no matter how non “PC” it
may be. Get it out there . . . do something overt with
it as opposed to just sitting with it.
AREAS OF LEARNING FOR THE YOUTH
New and Transferable Skills
The youth had their own learning experiences
throughout the project. On a concrete level, they
learned new skills related to planning and implement-
ing a project from start to finish. These were skills
that could easily be transferable to other situations.
A youth recalled:
We were learning as well as working in putting this
project together so that when the students left, we
knew that if something broke or something wobbled,
we would know how to fix it without them. We were
teaching them something as well as they were teach-
ing us something.
Youth described how they experienced the students
as colleagues and at other times role models support-
May 12, 2003 15:53 Style file version May 31, 2002
261
ing them in their learning. The need for positive role
models is particularly important for LGBTQ youth
because of their lack of traditional sources of adult
support, such as family, teachers, and peers (Nesmith
et al., 1999; Stanley, 1996, 2002; Welch, 1996). One
youth commented:
We have our support groups here and people tend
to do pretty well amongst their peers and counseling
situations but when there is that adult or professional
around, they can give that extra that maybe we can’t
say or you know, we may not know.
The youth also learned about working in a group,
a skill transferable to many situations. One youth
recalled:
We learned leadership skills. Just working as a group,
especially when you are working on a specific project
that people may start to lose interest in and trying to
rally the troops and get them back together. Def-
initely learning how to work together and how to
delegate responsibilities to people . . . This was a big
project that was going to affect our building, it was
going to affect people in the building. We were trying
to get things done as logistically as possible. Just in
how to work quickly without a lot of bickering and
arguing. We sort of learned how to bypass the arguing
to make a decision.
The group aspect of the project also helped some
of the youth focus on the needs of the center as a
whole. One youth summed the importance of the
youth giving back to the center through the project.
The Café is something that is the heart and soul of
the center. A lot of kids almost consider this like a
second home because there are a lot of kids that will
come here every day and stay for hours and so they
actually have a personal stake in this and it wasn’t just
a project. This was something to better themselves
and the center.
Sociocultural Differences: Gender, Race, Ethnicity,
Class, and Sexual Orientation
Being in a setting that celebrates the diversity of
youth of all sexual orientations, does not mean that
issues surrounding differences based on sociocultural
factors do not arise. The project was no exception.
Differences related to gender, for example, were
brought up by every youth interviewed who partici-
pated in the construction of the Café. The male stu-
dents and youth became “keepers” of the power tools
even though some of the females had experience in
this area. The females were told verbally and nonver-
bally that the construction aspect of the project was
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262
for the men and that the females were responsible
for painting and cleaning the Café. One male youth
recalled, “That was such a big thing, a couple of the
youth guys were like, ‘We do the tools.’ Wooooo.”
The intensity increased as the youth and the students
grouped by gender. One female youth stated:
The guys worked with the guys and the girls worked
with the girls and it was sort of like the girls were not
allowed to work with the guys. And it was even the
guys who were like, “Oh, we are working with these
guys, these are straight guys and we usually don’t get
to work with the straight guys you know.”
Early in the project the female youth were less di-
rect with their male counterparts about their dissat-
isfaction with the gender inequity. One male student
recalled:
The only people that it came up with was probably the
females because they were the ones, but they didn’t
talk about it. Actually they would mention it but they
weren’t like “I want to hammer, I want to drill,” to
the guys . . . They weren’t really all that forceful.
As the power differential escalated, the female
students and youth talked and the female youth be-
came more direct and assertive. As a female youth
described, “So it was really sort of sexist and we got
pissed and said, “Hey, give me the saw.” The project
became a learning tool for the youth about perceived
gender differences and how to directly address them.
Another area of sociocultural difference that was
addressed during the project was the issue of sexual
orientation. The youth faced their own stereotypes
and assumptions about working with the students
whom they assumed were heterosexual. One youth
spoke about how such assumptions and stereotypes
by the youth placed an unnecessary barrier between
them and the adults who volunteer at the center.
One of the things that I’ve always argued about here
is how a lot of the people here think everything must
be gay oriented. Everything must be like, “If this per-
son is not gay, then they don’t understand.” I think
that is disgustingly wrong. It is totally reverse dis-
crimination.
The project also provided an opportunity for the
youth to consider the sexual orientation hierarchy at
the center. The transgender youth were perceived as
having the lowest status. This particularly became a
strong issue near the completion of the project as the
transgender youth no longer felt welcome in the space.
A youth recalled:
Well, the only problem was that the Café as it was
being built used to be where most of the transgender
15:53 Style file version May 31, 2002
Stanley
people, who are mostly people of color, would dance.
So, there was a whole debate about where were they
going to go and how they should not be allowed to
go in there anymore to dance.
Such perceptions at the center reflect larger social and
political issues in the LGBTQ community. As trans-
gender pride increases in the LGBTQ community,
backlash against transgender people has also occurred
within the LGBTQ community itself. As one 16-year-
old African American youth said:
I think that a lot of people here don’t want to rec-
ognize that they are prejudice and I think that really
hinders a lot of conversations that we really need to
have about what goes on here around sexual orien-
tation and class. It’s in the world, but people don’t
want to admit that there is prejudice or racism in the
gay community because “we are all gay and so we
should get along.” But, I think every subculture is a
reflection of the dominant culture.
The youth of the center, like the LGBTQ community
as a whole, struggle with how to have such discussions
and how to foster a community of “diversity-within-
unity” (Faderman, 1991) where multiple identities are
accepted and celebrated.
TRAINING IMPLICATIONS
The project stands as a successful pedagogical ex-
perience that is an effective means of providing an ed-
ucational link between theory and an applied under-
standing of community psychology as well as issues
relevant to the LGBTQ community. The collabora-
tive project between the youth and the students also
directly answers the call for mental health providers to
work together with LGBTQ services to promote the
expansion of social networking within the LGBTQ
community (D’Augelli & Garnets, 1995).
The community outreach training program can
also be applied to other settings and populations and
has already successfully been implemented in the
course with a range of other underserviced popula-
tions. Such projects have involved: A teen-dating vi-
olence prevention program for middle school youth;
creating a support and vocational program for spouses
of international students; and, a literacy program for
women and their children who live in a women’s
transition housing program. The community outreach
training program model could also be used outside of
community psychology in a myriad of other courses
and training programs. The model is not limited to
psychology and could be used with other disciplines
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Applied Community Training
ranging from medicine, nursing, sociology, social work
to business.
Key aspects of the model should be maintained
when implementing the project. Building a relation-
ship in the community takes time, such as an entire
semester. One or two meetings with a community
may offer glimpses of knowledge but comprehensive
learning comes from trust that is established over ex-
tended interaction.
Another cornerstone of the training model is
continual support and consultation provided by
other class members and the course instructor. Such
projects call for flexibility, versatility, and the need
to regroup and refocus throughout the life of the
project. It also teaches students that learning is not
solely based on the number of successes during the
project or the outcome itself. When addressed, diffi-
culties, transgressions, and mistakes provide learning
as well.
An area of improvement for the model is the
incorporation of a more detailed evaluation compo-
nent. The course’s assignment requires that students
evaluate the project at the end of the program and
present these findings to the site as well as in their
final presentation. A more formal process of evalua-
tion for the project would, however, offer all involved
more insight and valuable information benefiting fu-
ture work as well.
UPDATE: THE CAFÉ, THE STUDENTS,
AND THE TRAINING PROGRAM
The Café
The Café, which is still in use today, is a focal
gathering space in the center and houses many formal
and informal events ranging from voguing contests to
a weekly cooking class. The courtyard also receives a
great deal of use year round. The Café has become
an integral part of the center, providing even more
opportunities for interaction, socializing, and support
for the LGBTQ youth.
The Students
Since completing the project and graduating,
some students involved in the Café project still visit
the center. Others have volunteered at the center
and one former student now works at the center.
The project also had an impact on students’ career
May 12, 2003 15:53 Style file version May 31, 2002
263
paths. Several former students from the Café project
chose positions in community related agencies af-
ter graduation and are involved in local and na-
tional intervention and prevention programs. For ex-
ample, one former student from the Café project is
now the director of a community-based prevention
project dedicated to the safety of urban youth. She
believes that the project was instrumental in her ca-
reer path and how she now approaches her work in the
community.
What I took away from the [center], and apply in
my job now, is much more of the community psy-
chology perspective regarding change and the en-
tire process regarding prevention. Like going into
communities and community centers and saying to
people in the community, “How do you perceive
the situation, how do you perceive a change com-
ing about?” I had a dry run at the [center], it was
the opportunity to test it out in a safe way with a
lot of guidance and with a group, which always feels
safer. It’s not just a volunteer project, which isn’t re-
ally learning about community psychology. It’s learn-
ing about the community and empowerment based
on what they want instead of coming in with our own
agenda.
So, I learned that now when I go into a certain com-
munity I first go to the block and find out what the
families think is going on. I don’t look first at best
practice, I look for what is really going on and have
the project be tailored to the individuals needs and
wants, like we did at the [center]. If we had gone
in there with our own agenda like, “We are going
to paint your building,” we would have been like
many other prevention programs out there, where
it’s the big white hospital coming out and putting
a big white band-aid on a multicolored community
that maybe doesn’t really like big white band-aids.
So, lots of money goes into a project and a lot of
energy goes into a project that ends up being frus-
trating on both ends. The prevention people, who
didn’t go out first to find out if the project was either
wanted or needed, are angry at the community be-
cause they didn’t accept their project. And then the
community is frustrated and they see these people
who keep coming out and telling them how they are
supposed to be.
The Community Outreach Training Program
The program remains an integral component of
the course, often highlighted in course evaluations by
the students as an essential learning component of the
course. This past semester, a new group of students
returned to the LGBTQ youth center and took on
a new project. The youth wanted for the first time
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American Journal of Community Psychology [ajcp] pp860-ajcp-465917 May 12, 2003
264
to hold a fundraising event for an agency other than
the center. The project became known as “Vogue for
AIDS” in which the city saw its first voguing contest
for youth, where all the proceeds were donated to
local AIDS organizations. The event was again a great
success for the team of youth and students.
CONCLUSION
The in-depth analysis of this applied training pro-
gram supports the effectiveness of the model. First,
students interviewed cited the fact that the project cre-
ated powerful opportunities for the concepts and the-
ories of community psychology to be learned as they
were applied in a real-life community-based learn-
ing environment. Second, the training program pro-
vided an excellent opportunity for students to gain
experience, over an extended period of time, working
with an underserved population in the community.
What better experience then working with a commu-
nity such as the LGBTQ community, that cuts across
all sociocultural aspects of identity such as gender,
age, ethnicity, race, socioeconomic-status, class, reli-
giosity, and abilities/disabilities. Such experience also
supports Garnets and D’Augelli’s belief (Garnets &
D’Augelli’s 1994) that:
Graduate training in community psychology
must incorporate a focus on lesbian and gay
communities . . . training a new generation of
community psychologists by involving them in the
pressing problems of lesbian and gay life in the
United States in the 1990’s is the best approach to
ending the invisibility of lesbians and gay men in
community psychology.
Third, the program provided support and learning op-
portunities for the youth in the center through their
interactions with each other and the community psy-
chology students.
In the youth center’s biannual newsletter to
the community, the opening of the Café was high-
lighted. The author wrote “The university students,
[students’ names], helped build the Café as a part
of a [community] psychology project. We are grate-
ful for their participation—without them we would
not have progressed as quickly or as successfully”
(Roszko, 1999). The students own learning could also
best be described by the same words from the newslet-
ter: “without them we would not have progressed as
quickly or as successfully.” This collaborative training
project represents an effective means of connecting
the “communities” of community psychology and the
15:53 Style file version May 31, 2002
Stanley
LGBTQ youth community via a successful training
model.
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TITLE: An Applied Collaborative Training Program for Graduate

Students in Community Psychology: A Case Study of a
Community Project Working With Lesbian, Gay,
Bisexual, Transgender, and Questioning Youth
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