Colors LGBTQ Youth Counseling Center, located at Antioch University in Culver City, provides free LGBTQ-affirmative counseling to youth under 25 and their families in the greater Los Angeles area. Since its launch in 2012, Colors has provided more than 3,700 free counseling sessions.

Passing by the sign for Antioch University on Slauson Ave. in the Fox Hills area of Culver City, you would be forgiven for thinking that it’s probably a University-of-Phoenix-esque, mail-order-degree kind of a place. In fact, Antioch University was founded in 1852 (!) by pioneering education reformer Horace Mann himself (!!) – and it is a joyfully progressive institution, genuinely devoted to social justice and community engagement. Antioch University also has campuses in Seattle; Santa Barbara, Yellow Springs, Ohio (the original); and Keene, New Hampshire.

Says Antioch’s web site: “In every program, in every class, students are prepared to become agents of positive change, and to combat the devastating effects of racism, classism, sexism, and homophobia.” Right on!

Consistent with this mission, Colors provides, according to its website, “a unique form of LGBTQ-affirmative counseling to combat the epidemic of youth suicides and distress caused by the oppression of LGBTQ youth in their homes, places of worship and communities.”

The counseling is provided by master’s students trained by Antioch’s LGBT Specialization in Clinical Psychology, the first Master of Arts program in Clinical Psychology in the nation to teach counselors competence in LGBT Affirmative Counseling. So the counseling also helps prepare Antioch’s students for future clinical practice or doctoral study in this growing and important area.

Colors counseling is about healing from the pressure to fit in and discovering the gift of being an LGBTQ youth, to love, to create, and to become your true self. If you are struggling to find out who you are, Colors is there for you.  Contact them at 323-953-5130 – or by filling out the intake form on the Colors site. 

Colors’ life-saving work is made possible by generous donors who feel compelled to make a difference in the lives of LGBTQ youth. If you’re interested in donating to this worthy cause, go to the Colors site and click on that Giving tab.