THE VOICE OF CHICAGO'S GAY, LESBIAN, BI, TRANS AND QUEER COMMUNITY SINCE 1985

The Alliance's Champaign office will host two staff positions and will be located within Unit 4 district offices. "We are so excited about this huge step toward fully realizing our statewide mission and we are grateful for the significant support we are receiving through the Illinois Department of Human Service's Substance Abuse Prevention Statewide Capacity-Building grant we received in July of this year." The IDHS grant, totaling $128,000 per year, aims to help the Alliance increase the capacity of school personnel and social service providers throughout Illinois to prevent substance use and abuse in LGBTQ youth.

The opening of this office is emblematic of the significant growth of the Alliance over the past few years. The Alliance's Chicago-based staff has expanded to five with the recent addition of Lawrence Carter as the Gay-Straight Alliance Network Coordinator. The Alliance has also become the fiscal sponsor of the National Safe Schools Roundtable (NSSR), a national collaborative of LGBTQ safe schools organizations, and will be hosting the NSSR's annual convening in Chicago this November.

About Illinois Safe Schools Alliance (the Alliance)

The mission of the Alliance is to promote safety, support and healthy development for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning (LGBTQ) youth, in Illinois schools and communities, through advocacy, education, youth organizing and research. The Alliance provides professional development to 3,000 school personnel annually, supports the network over 140 Gay-Straight Alliances across Illinois, and empowers youth to be agents of change in their own schools and communities. For more information, please visit www.illinoissafeschools.org .