Perhaps one of 30 under 30’s newest arrivals to the Windy City, Lara Brooks, 24, moved to Chicago this past September to work as an LGBT sexual assault counselor at the YWCA of Metropolitan Chicago. She began providing drop-in crisis intervention services and facilitating a ‘coming out’ group at the Broadway Youth Center—a new space for queer and homeless youth—before making the transition to full-time youth case manager at the BYC.
Currently, Lara links queer and homeless youth to HIV/STD testing, basic needs, medical care, counseling, drop-in/evening programming, housing, and community resources through the collaborative efforts of Howard Brown Health Center, The Night Ministry, Teen Living Programs, and Children’s Memorial Hospital.
Lara and the BYC are also collaborating with the About Face Youth Theatre to create a theater performance based on LGBTQ youth experiences of home and homelessness. She also volunteers for the Center on Halsted Anti-Violence Project’s 24-hour Crisis Line and for the Battered Women’s Network LGBT Domestic Violence Committee—an advocacy group working to educate service providers on LGBT domestic/sexual violence.
DID YOU KNOW? Lara can often be found talking on her cell phone and riding ‘Big Blue,’ a large-handled Schwinn Breeze cruiser.