At any given time, the PERSAD Center has 40 to 70 LGBTQ people on its waitlist for the specialized counseling it offers in Western Pennsylvania.
Since 1972, the center has provided counseling services, prevention programs and advocacy efforts for the LGBTQ and HIV/AIDS-impacted communities. But under high demand, PERSAD recently has had to formalize an attendance policy that some clients feel is harmful.
Under the nonprofit’s “no-show” attendance policy, clients get discharged from services if they miss three appointments in six months. This policy is not new, but PERSAD only began reviewing the policy with patients and asking them to sign it in the fall.
And concern over this policy is not the only upheaval occurring at PERSAD.
Chuck Albrecht, who was hired as PERSAD executive director in January 2018, suddenly left the position on Nov. 30, during the reporting of this story. Board member Martin Healey was elected board president on Dec. 18. Board treasurer Gene Welsh, who is Healey’s partner, and board co-president Charity Imbrie are serving as co-directors of PERSAD while the organization searches for Albrecht’s replacement.
Healey has served as a board member to PERSAD for three years. Before that, he worked on the organization’s development committee for two years. He’s also served as board member for the Delta Foundation, a leading Pittsburgh LGTBQ+ advocacy group, for two years. Healey plans to continue to serve on the Delta Foundation board as he helms the PERSAD board.
The Delta Foundation has faced controversy in recent years, especially concerning its management of Pittsburgh’s PRIDE march. As the foundation has found sponsors and increased attendance from 6,000 to 175,000, some Pittsburghers are concerned that PRIDE has become too catered to the mainstream, making it less inviting to the people it was originally intended to embrace.
Ciora Thomas is founder and director of SisTers PGH, a nonprofit that serves transgender and gender non-conforming youth in Pittsburgh with a focus on transgender women of color. She has concerns about PERSAD and the Delta Foundation and said collaboration between the two organizations would be “catastrophic.”
“PERSAD Center and the Delta Foundation, they’re the white gatekeepers of Pittsburgh,” she said. “They can’t access black people. They don’t know how to access us. …The only way they allow us on their platform is to tokenize us.”
READ ENTIRE STORY AT:
https://www.publicsource.org/persad-center-is-dealing-with-sudden-leadership-changes-and-concerns-about-a-no-show-policy-for-its-lgbtq-patients/
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