As someone in my 60s, it is natural for a 12-year-old to seem very young. And young is just what this particular young lady seemed to me after the assistant principal asked her to escort me to the auditorium at ACCION Academy near Crotona Park in the Bronx.

PFLAG NYC Safe Schools Speakers with Ms. Brown and Ms. Arevalo of ACCION Academy

PFLAG NYC's Safe Schools Program visited the Bronx Academy of Health Careers yesterday and spoke with the 9th and 10th grade students -- about 150 students in all. Diane Coughlin, Florence Shuster, and Raymund Flandez talked with each grade during consecutive programs in the school cafeterium.

PFLAG NYC partnered with the New York City Department of Education and the City Council to put on Safe Schools Program events in New York City schools during "Respect for All Week," which ran March 8 through 12.

The PFLAG NYC Safe Schools Program visited Community Action School on Manhattan's Upper West Side on February 3 to speak with the three sixth-grade classes. Volunteers Alice Wong, Aundaray Guess, Diane Coughlin, Florence Shuster, Myron Yolkut, Johanna Antar, and Judy Accurso shared their personal experiences of a loved one's coming out.

This week PFLAG NYC Executive Director Drew Tagliabue and Board Chair Suzanne Ramos met with the Family Matters Subcommittee of the New York City Commission for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Questioning (LGBTQ) Runaway and Homeless Youth, which is charged with devising strategies to address the needs of LGBTQ youth before they run away, while they are in need of shelter and support, and, if possible, to help reunite youth with their families.