My project focuses on the Philadelphia community’s response to homelessness among LGBTQ youth. LGBTQ youth make up approximately 40% of Philadelphia’s youth homeless population, but the organizations offering resources for youth experiencing homelessness are often unwilling or unable to serve LGBTQ youth, due to prejudice or a lack of education on LGBTQ issues. The purpose of my project was to delineate the resources available to LGBTQ youth experiencing homelessness (YEH) in Philadelphia and perform an analysis of the organizations’ approaches to providing service to the population. The ultimate goal of the project is to make relevant and realizable recommendations for improving the quality of service provision and coordination among organizations for LGBTQ youth in the city.
The most impactful lesson I learned through my research came from the individuals I met and interviewed for my project. In the past, I had written off the non-profit sphere as an industry full of people who were not talented or driven, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. Each and every one of them was incredibly smart, driven and dedicated to helping youth in need, and I cannot describe how inspiring their passion for their jobs and for improving the lives of others was for me. After having met so many talented individuals making a real difference in their communities, my plans for post-grad have completely changed. I’m hoping to find a job with a youth-serving nonprofit and then obtain a social work or nonprofit management degree in the future.
Doing research allowed me to apply a lot of the skills I have been developing over the past three years at Penn. Between researching and writing literature reviews, using the endless library resources in Van Pelt, reaching out and learning from incredibly knowledgeable and generous faculty, constructing this project has absolutely felt like the culmination of all of the work I’ve put in at Penn. With the help of my advisor, I built and completed a research project from scratch, and it was simultaneously the most challenging and most rewarding work I’ve done in my undergraduate career. I am deeply grateful to CURF, the Hassenfeld foundation, and my advisors for making this project possible. It has impacted me profoundly and helped me grow as a scholar and an individual.
My project focuses on the Philadelphia community’s response to homelessness among LGBTQ youth. LGBTQ youth make up approximately 40% of Philadelphia’s youth homeless population, but the organizations offering resources for youth experiencing homelessness are often unwilling or unable to serve LGBTQ youth, due to prejudice or a lack of education on LGBTQ issues. The purpose of my project was to delineate the resources available to LGBTQ youth experiencing homelessness (YEH) in Philadelphia and perform an analysis of the organizations’ approaches to providing service to the population. The ultimate goal of the project is to make relevant and realizable recommendations for improving the quality of service provision and coordination among organizations for LGBTQ youth in the city.
The most impactful lesson I learned through my research came from the individuals I met and interviewed for my project. In the past, I had written off the non-profit sphere as an industry full of people who were not talented or driven, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. Each and every one of them was incredibly smart, driven and dedicated to helping youth in need, and I cannot describe how inspiring their passion for their jobs and for improving the lives of others was for me. After having met so many talented individuals making a real difference in their communities, my plans for post-grad have completely changed. I’m hoping to find a job with a youth-serving nonprofit and then obtain a social work or nonprofit management degree in the future.
Doing research allowed me to apply a lot of the skills I have been developing over the past three years at Penn. Between researching and writing literature reviews, using the endless library resources in Van Pelt, reaching out and learning from incredibly knowledgeable and generous faculty, constructing this project has absolutely felt like the culmination of all of the work I’ve put in at Penn. With the help of my advisor, I built and completed a research project from scratch, and it was simultaneously the most challenging and most rewarding work I’ve done in my undergraduate career. I am deeply grateful to CURF, the Hassenfeld foundation, and my advisors for making this project possible. It has impacted me profoundly and helped me grow as a scholar and an individual.