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COUNSELING ON DEMAND

We have developed methodologies for enhancing both self-esteem and life-skills that are easily taught to new counseling staff and are compatible with the Counseling On Demand (COD)service delivery system as described below. Substance abuse plays such a large art in the lives of most of our population and is a leading cause of temporary slips from safe sex practices with youth who usually play safely. For this reason our counseling staff is well schooled in intervention techniques and in 12-step and other treatment methods for those who do not need residential treatment. For those who do, we regularly refer to local programs. For youth that are under 18years old, our aim is to get them in a non-exploitive, stable living situation. We work very closely with the Department of Children and Family Services' Runaway Adolescent Program (RAP) and regularly refer youth to them for placement in group and foster homes.

Our counseling staff are masters level, mental health professionals, although we see their role as being much more than just a therapist. In earlier times, when youth lived in extended families and close-knit communities, there was usually a family member (an aunt, uncle, grandparent) or community elder, who served as a non-punitive, alternate parent. Since these people were not involved in discipline and had demonstrated unconditional love for the youth, they could be turned to for guidance, comfort, and mentoring, with the knowledge that the youth would always get an honest evaluation of his/her actions. Because we feel it is important for our counselors to be able to act in this "elder"/role model role, we look for candidates who have been successful in their personal and professional lives. Counselors like this can teach their young clients the necessary life-skiffs lesions with the conviction of knowing they work. For at-risk youth on their own, having a counselor who they can bond to, look up to and emulate, is a key ingredient to counter the multiple levels of negative influences - personal, cultural, and social - which regularly undermine efforts to positively change one's life.

We are working in the Hollywood/West Hollywood area, with essentially two different populations:

The first are mostly homeless gay, bisexual, transsexual and transgender males, 13 to 24 years old, who engage in survival sex on Santa Monica Blvd for their living needs. They usually live in $35 a night motels. Most of them are not living with their parents due to the parents' attitudes regarding their sexual orientation. Included in this population are local teens who live with parents or family members. For these youths, the streets are their playground. They will also, on occasion, engage in prostitution for spending money. Unfortunately, the lure of lots of easy money gets many of these teens to become uninterested in low paying entry level jobs and with enough money to hve in motels and shop at high class stores, they stop living at home and going to school. We work with this population, on the street, in the Santa Monica and La Brea area of Hollywood/West Hollywood, CA.

The second are primarily gay, lesbian, bisexual, transsexual and transgender youths who are in semi-stable to stable living situations and are either working or going to school. They congregate in the coffee houses and underage discos of West Hollywood. Even if homeless and unemployed, clients from this group usually choose to sleep on friends' couches rather than resorting to survival sex on the streets. Included in this group are youths who live at home and are in the early stages of coming out. Although they are in stable living conditions, they are still at high risk for substance abuse and addictions, HIV/AIDS and suicide. We work with this population in and around the coffee houses in West Hollywood.

In the past, we provided our social services assistance to the students of Eagles Center, a LA Unified School District continuation high school that provides a hassle-free environment for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender youth. A year of experience there showed that the COD model also worked well in a school environment. Due to a lack of funding, we had to suspended our work there.

Since 40-70% (depending on the location) of our population is Hispanic and close to 20% of those that we work with in and around the West Hollywood coffeehouses are Asian Pacific and most are gay, lesbian, bisexual or questioning, we strive to find staff that are both linguistically and culturally compatible.

The fundamental elements of Counseling On Demand (COD) service delivery system, regardless of the setting where it is located are:

• 1. The counselor(s) go into their target population's environment, ie: the streets, coffee houses, or a school setting.
  
• 2. They spend as much time as is necessary to establish a friendly, trusting relationship with their potential clients. The guiding principle for this rapport building process is that the counselors must use a totally non-aggressive approach. The youth must set the level of interaction and that will be determined by his/her level of comfortableness and trust with the counselors. This approach sets the stage for successful counseling later on, for two reasons. First, youth do not change their behavior until something in their life experience convinces them that change is necessary. Imposing solutions and opinions on youth before they are asked for, are both ineffective and a rapport destabilizer. When the youth asks the counselor for advice or a life-skills lesson, she/he will be much more likely to listen to and act on the answer. Second, it prevents the "who asked you" defense. As some point in counseling directed at behavior change, the therapist will have to point out the youth's negative behaviors. Unless the youth asked for this confrontation, his/her best defense against this unsolicited advice is "who asked you".
  
• 3. Once rapport is achieved, the COD counselor is trained to recognize and capitalize on the therapeutic opportunities that are presented by the client in future casual conversations. Most COD counseling is done under the guise of casual conversation.
  
• 4. Youth are guaranteed access to a counselor that they already know and trust, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Youth are most receptive for behavior change suggestions and instruction at or just after times of crisis when their life experience has dramatically pointed out a need for change. By always being available to talk and/or walk them through these crises, the COD therapists are able to capitalize on these windows of opportunity that would otherwise be lost by the next day when denial returned and/or they were high on drugs again.
  
• 5. Since the goal of COD is to move youth towards self-sufficiency, there is a constant review of their progress to make sure that that leaming and behavior change is taking place. When a particular life-skill or behavior change is mastered, support in that area is gradually withdrawn to prevent an ongoing, unneeded, dependency on the counselors.