There’s no roadmap when you’re the first. When you embark on something that’s never been done before — whether you’re the first person in your family to graduate college or the first person to walk on the moon — there’s no clear path to take. With that uncertainty, however, comes freedom: you decide what the journey looks like. You pave the way.
At Avers, Lawrence Hall’s newest transitional living home — the state’s first transitional home for LGBTQ+ youth in care — carving that path is done with compassion and confidence.
“I can actually be free and not hide who I am,” Damien, a youth who has resided at Avers since May 2023, expressed. It’s where he and his four housemates “have an accepting place where we all can feel safe and cared for.”
What started as an idea by Lawrence Hall’s Director of Strategic Initiatives, Renee Lehocky, back in 2017 led to years of research, interviews, and focus groups of LGBTQ+ young people. The driving force behind this work was to ensure that queer youth — an overrepresented population in care — had an environment where they were affirmed in who they are and saw the potential in who they could be. “When I interviewed kids and asked, ‘What would make a home different?’ they all said, ‘There’s nobody there like me. There’s nobody I can look up to. Nobody that understands me,’” Renee shared. “I heard those voices and knew that’s what we needed to do.”
When writing a proposal for the home in 2021, Renee established the goal that at least 50% of our staff at Avers would identify within the LGBTQ+ community. “I wanted youth to see that they can be queer adults, and they can have a job,” Renee stated. “These kids have to see that they have a future.”
One year since its opening, 62% of staff at Avers identify within the LGBTQ+ community.
“I was looking for a job where I could share some of my experiences with young people and help them,” MJ Beauford, our LGBTQ+ young adult case manager, recalled about finding the position at Avers. “Helping them figure out — not just adulthood — but also where they fit within the community and getting them gender-affirming care; those are things I know plenty about.”
As the Avers Site Coordinator, Pavielle Randolph knew having MJ as a case manager was instrumental in laying the foundation for the Avers team.
“I’m not within the community, and so having someone knowledgeable — someone that I can learn from and that we can bounce ideas off of each other — was very important because they have the life experience that I may not have,” Pavielle shared. “As a team, we can build and give our young people what they need because we have someone [on staff] that is going through some of the same things.”
As the Lawrence Hall team navigated the first year at Avers together, establishing processes meant being patient — and persistent — with the resources that needed to catch up. “Our youth were pushing boundaries like, ‘Hey, I need this to feel affirmed,’ and DCFS didn’t know how to respond,” Pavielle said.
Though tedious, their initial efforts made a huge leap in figuring out how to move forward with the care needs of each youth, especially in changing their names. “Now we know these are the people we need to talk with to get this done, and get it done quickly,” Pavielle continued, “understanding that as we’re trying to figure it out, all the other systems are trying to figure it out as well.” Part of this learning curve included recognizing that just as youth needed help working in these systems, so did staff.
“When we’re saying that we want at least 50% of our staff to identify within the community, we have to realize that these systems also affect them,” Pavielle said. “That’s one of the things I learned the most; that it’s not just the young people, but how am I as a supervisor advocating for my staff to make sure that they feel affirmed.”
“I got here and found, okay, Pavielle is not going to say, ‘It’s whatever, you have to use your dead name,’” MJ said, referring to a common discriminatory practice. “The initial shock and relief of how not only is the home for the youth affirming, but my workplace is affirming. This is the first time I’ve had an affirming workplace.”
Overcoming the obstacle of managing different systems and witnessing the progress they’ve made has been “a roller coaster,” in MJ’s words. “Now we’ve gotten over the main hill and we’re starting to see the progress that we’ve been wanting.”
“I do agree: a roller coaster,” Pavielle added. “But a fun roller coaster, not one with a giant drop. Maybe like Vertical Velocity or Batman.”
For our Avers resident Damien, the peak of this ride was monumental: “I got my name legally changed.”
In a year of firsts, moments like witnessing the confidence Damien exuded when officially having his name belong to him are everything. “As a queer person, I recognize these are milestones in our young people’s lives,” MJ said. “I have it in my calendar for them like, ‘This is the anniversary of when you came out for the first time. This is the anniversary of the first time you got your name changed, or your first gender-affirming procedure.’ Those are days that you remember for the rest of your life, and for them to have multiple milestones just within this year is exciting.
“Now, three of our youth have name changes and three have gender- affirming procedures planned. Those are things that they’re going to take with them for the rest of their lives to be themselves. Knowing we made multiple milestones so much easier for them was just the highlight of being able to work here.”
There are more milestones in the future for Avers. At the time of this story, Lawrence Hall staff are preparing for the first youth to move into his own apartment, and he’ll continue receiving support from his case manager, MJ. “When I think of the future of Avers, I’m hoping to hear back happy stories from the youth as they [move out],’” MJ said. Whether its Lawrence Hall staff assisting with name-change paperwork or connecting youth with gender-affirming health services before they start college, the hope in hearing those stories is the same: “To empower the youth that we serve and to see Avers as a place inspiring others and inspiring more places like this to come about.”
Lawrence Hall and the Avers team went where there was no path and blazed a trail. They asked new questions and found their own answers — answers that are now being studied by the policy research center, Chapin Hall, as a model for similar initiatives. Having laid the groundwork for a promising future, Pavielle knows one thing for sure:
“We rocked this year.”
