PRIDES Learning Series: Session 5

LGBTQIA+ Advocacy & Support Strategies

Presenter: Hannah Voss

This session will cover advocacy and support opportunities for LGBTQIA+ people with disabilities in employment. We know that roughly 40% of people with disabilities identify as part of the LGBTQIA+ community. While support professionals come to this field with a wide variety of different experiences, not every support professional knows how to identify and navigate scenarios that may result in discomfort, frustration, or barriers to employment. This presentation will address how to appropriately and (if applicable) legally advocate for an LGBTQIA+ person with a disability in employment. We will review scenarios where providing emotional support, employment advocacy, and appropriate boundaries attempts to achieve positive outcomes for the LGBTQIA+ people with disabilities receiving support.

Hannah Voss (they/she) is a Whatcom and Skagit County Program Manager at Work Opportunities. Hannah graduated from Western Washington University with a bachelor’s degree in human services and has worked in supported employment since 2016. They hope to share perspectives from both lived experience as a queer and gender-non-conforming employee as well as their professional experience providing advocacy and support to LGBTQIA+ individuals with disabilities. Her goal is to provide guidelines for initiating supportive conversations and collaborative strategy ideas to best and most effectively support unique individuals with varying needs across the disabled LGBTQIA+ community.