Diversity Collective Ventura County

Diversity Collective Ventura County is the LGBTQ+ community center for Ventura County. Its mission is simple and broad: advocacy, visibility, safety and wellness for the LGBTQ+ community. Its vision is a county where LGBTQ+ people, inclusive of every intersecting identity, have immediate access to the services they need and are celebrated and treated with equity and respect.

The heart of that work is the Community Resource Center at 2471 Portola Road in Ventura, open for office hours every weekday afternoon. The center hosts Diversity Collective's own programs alongside partner groups, including a transgender peer group, the Diversity Toastmasters club and PFLAG Ventura, which meets there on the second Tuesday of each month. Staff also keep a list of crisis lines, legal resources and local LGBTQ+ groups for anyone looking for support.

Youth programs are a centerpiece. Rainbow Umbrella is a peer support group for young people ages 13 to 23 who are LGBTQ+ or questioning, meeting every Friday from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the center with activities and check-ins designed to support mental health. Little Unicorns is for LGBTQ+, questioning and ally kids ages nine to 13, meeting once a month on a Saturday afternoon to talk through relevant issues in a relaxed setting. Diversity Collective has also hosted a GSA Leadership Summit for students and offers resources for school Gay-Straight Alliances.

Adults find community in the TransPride support group, a loose-format, anything-goes gathering for anyone under the transgender and gender nonconforming umbrella, as well as the Queer Adulting Group and the Diversity Toastmasters club, which meets the first and third Tuesdays of the month.

Diversity SHINES (Sexual Health Information Network and Educational Support) provides free sexual health services with a whole-person, status-neutral approach. Certified HIV counselors offer free confidential HIV and STI screenings, covering syphilis, chlamydia and gonorrhea, on the first Monday of every month from 3 to 7 p.m., with appointments preferred and some walk-ins available. The program also offers PrEP and PEP navigation by appointment, information on free MPOX vaccines, and SHINE With Me safer sex kits that can be picked up at the center or mailed. Shining Education workshops open candid conversations about STIs and HIV and the options for prevention and treatment.

Through P.R.I.D.E. (Parents and Professionals' Responsibility for Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity) training, offered by the Rainbow Umbrella program with Ventura County Behavioral Health, Diversity Collective brings a four-hour LGBTQ+ cultural competency curriculum to youth-serving organizations, parents, educators, businesses and young people themselves, grounded in lived experience and interactive exercises.

Diversity Collective also produces the county's largest LGBTQ+ celebrations. Ventura County Pride fills Plaza Park each summer, and its proceeds sustain the Community Resource Center year-round. Pride Prom, held in downtown Ventura, is a free prom for LGBTQ+ young people ages 13 to 23. The Diversity Gala honors people and organizations who have made an impact on Ventura County's LGBTQ+ community, and World AIDS Day and AIDS Walk Ventura keep attention on HIV locally. Anyone can get involved by volunteering at events and programs, sponsoring, or making a one-time or monthly donation.