Yes Institute
Riviera Presbyterian’s church is proud to BE WORKING WITH THE YES INSTITUTE ON GLBTQ SUICIDE PREVENTION.
YES Institute began as a personal project in 1995 led by Connie Barden (Member of Riviera) and Martha Fugate. Known as Project YES, the two began meeting with local community leaders and educators to understand what could be done to keep gay and lesbian youth from wanting to kill or harm themselves. In these meetings, they discovered two critical reasons why well-intentioned professionals were not taking effective actions: they lacked education and they were not comfortable talking about gay youth.
This was the missing piece, the contribution that was needed, and it became the purpose of YES Institute: to provide powerful communication and education to empower people to serve and protect all youth regardless of circumstances or opinions.
