Our coloring book project serves as a tool to promote healthy coping strategies and to reduce rates of Cannabis use among youth.
Seattle’s LGBTQ+ Center’s Youth Advisory Council (YAC) guides the implementation of youth prevention programming to decrease the impact of risk factors that contribute to LGBTQ+ health disparities (such as substance use/abuse, high-risk sexual practices, homelessness/unstable housing, economic instability, and suicidality) and to increase youth protective factors that promote self-determination, liberation, and joy.
In 2021 YAC co-led a study with a Masters of Public Health graduate student, Matt Harnpadoungsataya, PT, DPT, at UW in coordination with King County Public Health. The Youth-Led Qualitative Research on Marijuana Use and Stress Coping for LGBTQ+ Youth study examined QTBIPOC Cannabis use, reasons for coping with Cannabis, and identified youth recommended strategies to increase protective factors and community health. The thesis of the paper was that Mental Health and Social Stressors on QTBIPOC youth lead to higher rates of Cannabis use compared to their cis-heterosexual counterparts (Harnpadoungsataya, 2021, p. 10).
One strategy that emerged was to Teach Effective Self-Coping Skills To Promote Healthy Coping. Harnpadoungsataya (2021) identified that youth struggled to cope with stress due to lack of healthy coping skills and that teaching youth stress coping skills affected their belief in their own ability to change (p. 45). This strategy also builds youth ability to self-determine by improving their confidence in their own abilities to make changes in their daily lives.
YAC directed Seattle’s LGBTQ+ Center to focus on using art, including coloring, as a healthy coping strategy and protective factor against substance use. Based on these findings we collaborated with 23 young people and community artists to develop a coloring book to distribute at our center and beyond. This strategy is an investment in our community’s creative potential and is a gift from our community to other QTBIPOC people.
Download the Queer & Trans Coloring Book here or visit us in person to pick up a copy!
Citations
Harnpadoungsataya, M. (2021). Youth-Led qualitative Research on Marijuana Use and Stress Coping for LGBTQ+ Youth [Unpublished Master of Public Health Capstone Project]. University of Washington
Contact Info
Address: 400 E Pine St Suite 100, Seattle, WA 98122
Phone: (206) 860-6969
Email the Youth Advocacy Team
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