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Mental Health Awareness Month
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May is Mental Health Awareness Month, which is meant to bring awareness to mental health conditions, fight stigma, and help provide people with the support that they need.
What can you do this month?
- Seek support for yourself. If you need someone to talk to -- whether you're experiencing a mental health crisis, struggling to navigate your identity, or facing other concerns -- we're here for you. You are always welcome to text us at +1.313.662.8209.
- Educate yourself. Are you familiar with various mental health conditions and marginalized experiences? How would you react if someone brought up suicide in a conversation?
- Support those around you. Peer support is so vital in a world where we often face dehumanizing or nonexistent care from professionals. Take care of your communities; volunteer with THRIVE or another organization if you have the ability to further invest.
- Gather resources. Whether for yourself or someone else, knowledge of available resources can be very helpful. Check out our Resource Corner below for some of the resources our texters often find useful, or our database of resources on our website!
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In light of Mental Health Awareness month, we're highlighting several resources that our communities and texters that we support have found helpful.
Community spaces / support groups:
- TRANS Discord: THRIVE moderates a discord server for anyone 16+ who is trans / nonbinary / agender to chat and form community.
- oSTEM Global Discord: oSTEM is a non-profit professional society dedicated to LGBTQ+ people within STEM. Their discord server provides an opportunity to connect personally as well as professionally with other LGBTQ+ STEM students and professionals
- Fireweed Collective: An organization which offers sliding scale support groups to offer mutual aid / peer support with others who share similar life experiences and struggles. Groups focus on QTBIPOC and Disabled / Chronically Ill / Neurodivergent folks.
- Therapy Tribe: Free online support community offers people a convenient and safe place to connect around addiction, anxiety, depression, HIV/AIDS, LGBTQ+, marriage / family, OCD, and teen issues.
Funding / Housing / Work:
- 211: A comprehensive source of locally curated social services information in the US and Canada, which includes helping find assistance with food, housing, disaster relief, employment, education, veteran services, healthcare, etc.
- Point of Pride: A trans-led nonprofit which offers a lot of transition-related funding/services, such as a chest binder donation program and trans feminine shapewear program.
- Trans Can Work: A non-profit helping trans job seekers with career support and training, and providing education to current workplaces.
Coping strategies:
- 99 coping mechanisms: A list of 99 different coping mechanisms, which can help give ideas for what to do
- Coping with gender dysphoria: A PDF with various accessible strategies for coping with gender dysphoria
- Caring for yourself to care for others: A burnout and vicarious trauma toolkit in PDF form that talks about ways to take care of yourself and why that is important, so you are able to process your own trauma and care for others.
- Alternatives to self harm: A compilation of alternatives to self harm, separated by motivation behind the urge to self harm.
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One of the ways that we support the mental health of our communities is by offering high quality educational, mentorship, and professional development opportunities to all of our volunteers and staff. We’re so excited and honored to announce Maya Morriswala (they/them) as the 2023 - 2024 RECRUIT Internship Coordinator! They will be working alongside our paid RECRUIT Interns to provide mentorship and support.
We are also currently accepting applications for 5 mentor positions for the 2023 - 2024 class of RECRUIT Interns. Mentors will work 1:1 supporting RECRUIT Interns as they progress through crisis response training, and will receive a $300 stipend. Applications close this Sunday, May 21.
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This month we celebrate the following volunteers:
Isabella and Sam completed our crisis responder training and have begun taking shifts on the line. We're so proud of you and grateful for the time you give to your communities.
Quinn has been helping cover the line and respond to texters during shift gaps -- thank you so much!
Sun, Emmarose, Jacob, Maya, Morgan, and Quinn are doing a wonderful job as training assistants, helping our crisis responder trainees do practice conversations!
Isabella has helped create some educational materials to share with our crisis responders and broader community! We're really grateful for that shared knowledge.
Mohammad and Emerson have been working on targeted outreach for the RECRUIT internship. Thank you so much for sharing our opportunities and increasing access!
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This month at THRIVE: Our training calendar (above) includes volunteer orientation on the second and fourth Saturdays of the month. We offer 2 four-hour blocks of crisis response training, with the first occurring on May 20. We meet for mentorship meetings on Wednesdays. The May social was on May 12, and we had a great time connecting with each other and playing games!
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RECRUIT Internship: We're sending out video interview requests on a rolling basis, and continuing to process new applications as well! Thank you to everyone who has helped us recruit applicants so far, as well as all those who are applying for our five paid internship positions. Download flyers by clicking on button below to share these exciting opportunities with your own community!
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Apply for our RECRUIT internship program today!
We will:
- Meet you where you are as a student who experiences marginalization
- Empower you and give you undeniable professional experience
- Equip you with the skills to directly impact the lives of others who may share your intersecting identities and experiences.
Applications close on May 26, 2023 and are being reviewed on a rolling basis. The internship will run from August 20, 2023 to August 17, 2024, with a total stipend of $4500. On average, RECRUITs can expect to work approximately 6 hours per week for 50 weeks.
Whatever your experience level, we welcome you and are honored to grow alongside you.
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Not an undergrad student looking for an internship, but still want to join our team? We are always looking for volunteers! We have a variety of different positions, depending on your interests and goals
- Crisis responder
- Training assistant
- Social media team member or coordinator
- Outreach / recruitment
- Fundraising / donor relations
We're so grateful for any time you are able to give. We'll provide training, mentorship, and a supportive community to learn and grow within.
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Your valuable donations help us to provide life-saving services and contribute to life-affirming programs like the RECRUIT Internship.
If you are able to, please consider making a tax-deductible donation today!
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Text "THRIVE" to +1.313.662.8209, 24/7/365, any time you need to talk to someone who gets it. Whoever you are, wherever you are, THRIVE is here for you.
It is an honor to share space with you.
Please note: As a 988 alternative, we seek to deescalate, to meet you where you are, and to form relevant safety plans together with you. We do not practice non-consensual active rescue. When you reach out to THRIVE, we value your consent and your safety.
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