Holding Space: LGBTQ+ Stories of Healing, Health, and Hope

In this PRIDE Month panel, we’ll bring together LGBTQ+ healthcare providers and UCLA staff voices to share stories of advocacy, healing, joy, struggle and the power of affirming spaces, as well as practical strategies for mental wellness in difficult times. Through vulnerability, lived experience and expert insight, we’ll explore how holding space for ourselves - and for one another - can foster joy, resistance, healing and community for people of every identity, orientation and experience.

Moderator:

Dr. Medell Briggs-Malonson, Chief, Health Equity and Inclusive Excellence, UCLA Health System; Chief Health Equity Officer, University of California Health; Associate Clinical Professor of Emergency Medicine, DGSOM at UCLA, (she/her/hers)

Panelists:

• Vanessa Aviva González-Siegel, Director, LGBTQ Campus Resource Center
  (she/her/ella/ela)
• Carl Barrett, Programs Manager for Planning Design and Construction & UCLA Health PRIDE Network Chair
  (he/him/his)
• Dr. Natalia Ramos MD, MPH, Medical Director of the UCLA EMPWR Program and Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry in the David Geffen School of Medicine, (she/her/ella)
• Beckett Maravelias, Health Equity Consulting Specialist & Climate Resilience Co-Lead, UCLA Health Office of Health Equity & Inclusive Excellence
  (they/them/theirs)