Five Newport organizations newly designated as LGBTQ safe spaces: What does it mean
NEWPORT — Five Newport organizations received a new certification designating them as LGTBQ safe spaces, the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center recently announced.
In November 2021, Women’s Resource Center and Newport Mental Health were the first Newport County organizations to join a network of healthcare organizations to be designated as Blue Cross Blue Shield LGBTQ Safe Zones. The initial program certified these healthcare providers provided inclusive treatment and services for members of the LGBTQ community, including housing non-gendered bathrooms in their facilities and hosting cultural competence training for their employees.
The new BRAVE space certification is a collaborative pilot project between Newport’s Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center and the Newport Health Equity Zone’s LGBTQ+ Health Working Group to establish a safe space certification for non-healthcare organizations.
What is this new certification?
The new designation stands for “Belonging, Respect, Acceptance, Validity and Equity,” and was funded through COVID relief from the Rhode Island Department of Health. The certification requires organizations to meet 11 specific criteria established with the help of the LGBTQ+ Working Group and LGBTQ locals, however, the goal of the project is for participating organizations to examine their policies and relations with clients and employees to learn how to create an intersectional, safe and welcoming environment for the LGBTQ community, according to MLK Community Center’s press release.
Which organizations now have this designation?
Five Newport organizations now display the BRAVE decals at their facilities:
As a part of the process to acquire this designation, Conexión Latina Executive Director Rebekah Gomez said in a statement that the organization underwent training and organizational changes which enabled and inspired the organization to pay more attention to details as a part of their work they may have not been aware of or weren’t paying enough attention to.
Gomez also said in her statement that the group would be kicking off its inclusion efforts by hosting a domestic violence prevention campaign workshop for LGBTQ youth ages 13 to 17.
FabNewport Executive Director Steve Heath of FabNewport also said in a statement that the BRAVE Space workshops informed his team how to increase inclusivity and equity for FabNewport’s students. Bari Freeman, executive director for Bike Newport, said in her statement about the designation that the organization was an exceptional learning experience and, because of the organization’s own value for inclusivity, it was able to share its practices and process while improving and refining its methods.
This article originally appeared on Newport Daily News: Five Newport organizations newly designated as LGBTQ safe spaces
