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Safety first, skills second: how LGBTIQ employment programs help people find work and keep it
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November 2, 2026
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In short: people cannot learn new skills while they are still in crisis. Partners in Outright’s Build, Earn, Thrive (Bet) Initiative told us that employment programs for LGBTIQ people work best when they secure safety and stability first. Then they build technical skills, soft skills, psychosocial support, and peer networks around a plan each participant defines.
Exclusion follows LGBTIQ people into the job market. Rejection at home and at school, discriminatory hiring, laws that criminalize or exclude, and impunity for abuse all cut into a person’s education and their chances of finding work. Economic independence takes more than a diploma or a trade. It also depends on whether someone can keep the job or the business going once discrimination, stigma, and trauma show up in daily life.
In April 2026, partners in the Bet Initiative met in Bangkok for the final gathering of the Inclusive Solutions program and the first meeting of the Bet Community of Practice, a peer network of the initiative’s partner organizations. Their message: good program design can carry people through those pressures. Two principles came up again and again.
Why does safety come before skills?
Design principle 1: safety and stability before skills
Economic inclusion means helping people find work, start a business, and earn a steady income. Organizations that add it to their emergency services need to first bring people to stability. Someone who does not know how they will feed their family tonight cannot focus on a résumé or a training course.
Casa Frida, a partner in Mexico working with LGBTIQ migrants and displaced people, runs a three-stage model. Since 2020, Casa Frida has helped more than 7,700 people facing displacement, discrimination, and structural violence to find their footing. The first stage secures safety, shelter, and psychosocial support. The second helps each person define a “life project.” Only then does the work turn to practical preparation for a job: résumés, interviews, and skills.
Partners report that people who go through this sequence rely less on crisis services afterward, which frees those services for people arriving in acute need.
The “life project” as an organizing framework
Casa Frida builds every part of its program, from résumé writing to interview practice to skills training, around a “life project”: the direction each person defines for themselves, however tentative.
Its staff describes the résumé as “a reflection of someone’s capacity to imagine a future.” For people who have lived through long periods of exclusion, imagining even the near future is a skill in itself. Writing the life project down is the first exercise, and everything else is built around it.
What support do people need beyond technical skills?
Design principle 2: integrated, whole-person support
Technical skills get people a placement or a business plan. Soft skills, psychosocial support, and peer networks are what keep them there. Partners see this hold across identities and residency status.
Soft skills are the habits that shape how you work with other people: communication, teamwork, managing stress and time, and reading a room. Knowing how to apply for a job is not much use if the interview goes badly. Keeping the job is harder if you cannot handle a disagreement with a supervisor. These skills can be taught and practiced.
For LGBTIQ entrepreneurs who sell to large companies, these habits are part of the product. A partner from Colombia put it plainly:
Quote from Felipe Cárdenas
“We need to make sure we are professional enough, we are on time, we meet the deadlines, and we provide the products or services with the quality that is expected. Because again, it’s not a donation, it’s a purchase. So you just have to be professional and deliver.”
Psychosocial support, meaning help with mental health and well-being, can take the form of informal peer conversations or formal clinical care. Partners said what matters most is building it into the program from day one, whatever the format. One partner working with intersex people found that starting the psychosocial work during the needs assessment, before any training, built trust. Participants said they felt heard and were more ready to take part in economic activities as a result.
Partners across regions singled out trans people as facing the steepest barriers: the most discrimination in hiring, and the most support needed before a job is a realistic goal.
Peer networks do what no curriculum can. Members share job leads, talk each other through a bad week, and give advice drawn from shared experience. Partners said that when a participant starts showing up for the network, it is usually the first sign that things are turning around. Several networks have outlived the programs that started them, and members still turn to each other in a crisis.
Networks also open doors. The Cámara de la Diversidad in Colombia trains and mentors small LGBTIQ-owned businesses, and its events tell large companies who is ready to supply them:
Quote from Juanita Suzunaga
“For the large corporation, the possibility of that entrepreneur being at one of our events is a sign-off that they’re trained, they’re credible, and that they’re ready to do something in the proper way.”
Community-based peer support and learning
The Philippine LGBT Chamber of Commerce (PLCC), a partner in the Philippines, makes every program community-led, with trainers and staff drawn from the community itself. Knowledge stays within the community rather than coming from outside, and the peer relationships that form in the room continue after the program ends.
PLCC described those relationships as the infrastructure participants fall back on when a job or a business hits trouble.
What this means for program design
Partners kept returning to three points.
- Stabilize first. Nobody can plan a career while they are working out where to sleep.
- Build the program around the plan each person defines for themselves.
- Treat soft skills, psychosocial support, and peer networks as core parts of the program. They are what keep someone in the job once technical training has gotten them the interview.
Get involved
Read more about the Bet Initiative and the Inclusive Solutions program.
Does your organization work on LGBTIQ livelihoods? Tell us about your work and how you would like to engage with the Bet Initiative.
Frequently asked questions
What is the Bet Initiative?
Build, Earn, Thrive (Bet) is Outright International’s initiative on economic inclusion for LGBTIQ people. It works with partner organizations that help LGBTIQ people find work, start businesses, and earn a stable income, and brings them together in the Bet Community of Practice.
What is a “life project” in an employment program?
A life project is the direction a participant sets for their own future, however tentative. Casa Frida, a Bet Initiative partner in Mexico, has each person write it down first, then builds résumé writing, interview practice, and skills training around it.
Why do LGBTIQ employment programs include psychosocial support?
Discrimination, stigma, and trauma make it harder to keep a job or a business going. Bet Initiative partners found that incorporating psychosocial support into a program from day one builds trust, and participants said it left them better prepared to participate in economic activities.
About the authors
Karissa Jackson (she/her) is Program Manager, Economic Inclusion and Livelihoods, at Outright International. Linda Keuntje (she/her) is Outright’s Senior Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning Manager.
This article is part 1 of 5 in Field Notes: Building Inclusive Economies, a series drawn from the Bet Initiative partners meeting in Bangkok in April 2026.
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