About Our Organization Trans-Wa (formally, The Transgender Health and Wellness Center of Washington) is a nonprofit that serves Trans, Two-Spirit, Nonbinary, Intersex, 3rd gender, and all gender-expansive people across Washington State.

Mission Statement: We are a trans-led organization that advances health equity and justice for gender-expansive people across Washington State by eliminating barriers to self-determination, building gender-expansive community and capacity, and driving institutional and systemic change.

Aspiration Statement: We seek a future of mutual liberation where the infinite spectrum of gender is universally celebrated, especially for gender-expansive and historically marginalized individuals.

We approach our work through the lenses of equity, inclusion, access/ibility, and justice, and are working to cultivate explicitly anti-cissexist, anti-colonialist, antiracist, anti-ableist, and systemically anti-oppressive programs, policies, and practices. We are entering our 2nd year of operations and are actively developing our policies, programs, and change strategy, as well as developing our board. Practicum students will have a high level of influence at the foundational level of our organizational development.

About Student-Centered Internships: Our practicum placements are student-centered! We will work with you to align practicum activities with your interests and career goals.  Students also can elect to focus a project on a group or area of interest relevant to gender expansive individuals and communities.

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About this Position:

The Changemakers’ Mental Health Hub (launching July 2024) is a free, publicly available, coalition-based digital platform that advances mental health equity, access, and justice by connecting changemakers to resources, stories, tools, data, and each other. It explicitly centers people with lived experience, including Disabled, neurodivergent, and mad (reclaimed use!) perspectives.

The Hub is the primary project of the Changemakers in Mental Health Coalition, a diverse group of nonprofits and individuals working in mental health and related fields. The Hub uses a unique model of reciprocal support, cross-sector collaboration, and shared ownership to create a space of belonging, acceptance, and un/learning for people with mental health conditions to self-advocate. It provides resources for a wide range of changemakers in mental, behavioral, social, and cultural health, but explicitly centers those with lived experience. 

As a member of the Mental Health Hub Work Group, the practicum student would have the opportunity to choose their focus areas from our list of 2024-25 priorities. These include a wide range of issues intersecting with mental health, including:

• BIPOC mental health
• LGBTQ+ mental health
• Black perinatal mental health
• Im/migrant mental health
• Global crises and mental health, and more specifically the Gaza genocide and Palestinian, Jewish, and Arab American mental health
• Incarceration and mental health
• Behavioral health, substance use, and harm reduction
• Climate crises, eco-anxiety, and mental health
• Gaming, virtual platforms, and mental health
• Neuroinclusion and workplace mental health
• Sizeism, eating disorders, and mental health

Activities are mutually agreed upon, but may include:
-- Ensure Trans-Wa's values, participant confidentiality, and HIPAA compliance (as relevant) are upheld in all interpersonal interactions
-- Engage Work Group and Advisory group members in between meetings as needed
-- Meet with prospective coalition members and explore partnership opportunities
-- Conduct outreach to organizations aligned with the Coalition's recruitment priorities
-- Provide support, as needed, to Hub contributors through the processes of content selection, creation, editing, and publication
-- Attend meetings with potential funders and other partners, as needed

Activities are mutually agreed upon, but may include:
-- Attend weekly Trans-Wa all staff meetings and co-working times, as well as relevant team, supervision, and other meetings
-- Work with communications folks and other work group members to co-create and implement a multi-channel strategic communications plan
-- Co-facilitate monthly work group meetings, where coalition members who are working on the Mental Health Hub provide updates and coordinate their work
-- Co-facilitate quarterly advisory group meetings, where coalition members advising on the development and growth of the Hub have the opportunity provide feedback
-- (Optional) Learn to manage the Hub website in WordPress and edit webpages in Divi
-- (Optional) Create infographics and other images for the Hub
-- Support metadata creation processes for knowledge management platform integration (We will train you on this process!)
-- Create training documentation for future work group members and coordinators to step into various roles
-- Review Hub and coalition feedback, and work with coalition to collaboratively address feedback as needed
-- Leverage best practices to improve Hub accessibility
-- Coordinate multi-language translation of materials (you do NOT need to speak/read/write these languages; you'll be working with software and translators!)

Activities are mutually agreed upon, but may include:
-- Facilitate strategic planning and documentation processes for the coalition
-- Collaborate with work group and Trans-Wa leadership to explore and operationalize research justice and Disability Justice, both as part of the Mental Health Hub work and as part of Trans-Wa's other bodies of work
-- Research and curate resources, stories, tools, and data related to selected focus areas relating to mental health
-- Support the creation of original content (could be written, video, infographics, or other options) related to mental health
-- Write original content (i.e. topic page descriptions, personal pieces, and/or research-based pieces) for the Hub
-- Support coalition members in creating a charter and MOUs, outlining coalition policies

We also offer many paid training opportunities throughout the year. For example, this fall we're bringing in an organizational trauma consultant to do a 2-4 hour training for our staff (including practicum folks). In the past, we've also welcomed students to self-select trainings that Trans-Wa was able to cover.

Required:
-- Passionate about gender and intersecting identities, lived experiences, and issues
-- Deep commitment to gender expansive people and communities, including transgender, nonbinary, intersex, Two Spirit, gender fluid, genderqueer, bigender, GNC, agender, and all other non-cis genders
-- Deep commitment to anti-oppression, accessibility, equity, justice, and intersectional identities
-- Ability to identify own positionality (both privilege and marginalization) and engage with people across significant difference from a place of humility, respect, and empathy
-- Comfortable interacting with diverse groups of people via email, social media, Zoom, phone, and possibly in person
-- Commitment and follow-through to execute tasks—including potentially routine or mundane tasks—that are crucial for the implementation of projects and programs
-- Ability to self-organize and self-initiate, and/or willingness to work collaboratively with teammates to organize and plan tasks and workflow

Preferred:
-- Previous experience working with LGBTQ+ community -- especially trans and gender expansive individuals -- and issues (lived experience is experience!!)

English
Other language proficiencies a plus!

Please send resume, cover letter, and a writing sample to:
admin@transwa.org

Please indicate which of our open positions you're interested in applying for. YES you can apply to more than one!

This position is:
-- Virtual Hub Coordinator for Mental Health Equity & Access (Coalition-Building, Research Justice, Disability Justice; nation-wide coalition-based project)

The other options are:
-- Gender-Affirming Hair Removal Program Management & Medical Social Work
-- Queer/Trans BIPOC Programs and Partnerships
-- Name/ID Change Program for Gender-Expansive People (Program Management, Direct Service, and Policy Advocacy)
-- Development of WA Gender-Affirming Care/Services Directory (Provider Outreach, Resource Navigation, Program Management)
-- Gender-Expansive Lending Library Program Manager
-- Virtual Community-Building and Multi-Media Communications Management for Trans Justice
-- Organizing and Policy Advocacy for Gender-Affirming Care Across Washington State