Empowerment Through Inclusion
Giving young LGBTQ+ people the visibility, voice, and support they need to thrive in education and beyond – a profile of LGBTQ+ youth charity Just Like Us
An interview with Stuart Brown, Head of Partnerships, Just Like Us
You may have heard of Just Like Us, a UK-based charity for LGBTQ+ young people, and their mission to eliminate anti-LGBTQ+ bullying in schools. But their work – and indeed, their vision itself – goes far beyond this, as I found out when I sat down to talk to Stuart.
A key purpose of the charity is to “level the playing field” for LGBTQ+ young people in schools, as Stuart explains. These young people are often at a disadvantage not just because of bullying but also because of silence, lack of representation, and systemic inequality.
A vision backed by research
Systemic inequality? In the education sector?
Well, sadly yes. And Just Like Us has research to prove it.
Alongside the service delivery that makes up the bulk of the charity’s work, “to make sure the services we’re delivering are solving the right problems and doing the right things, we’ve done a couple of really big landmark pieces of research,” Stuart says.
Some of the findings are, frankly, shocking. For example, LGBTQ+ pupils are “twice as likely” to suffer depression, anxiety, and panic attacks than their non-LGBTQ+ peers, while only just over half feel safe at school every day.
As Stuart puts it, “learning can’t really take place if kids are worrying about safety, if they’re hiding secrets, if things are a little more existential than the maths problem they’re working on.”
He adds: “We found that even at primary age – before they turn 11 – about four in five young people have heard homophobic language.”
It’s facts like these that fuel the vision and overarching purpose of Just Like Us which, as the UK’s LGBT+ young people’s charity, “helps teachers and students make their school more inclusive, to make sure that all children succeed in education, regardless of their identity.”
Long term disadvantages for LGBTQ+ youth
This is important because the disadvantages don’t end at the school gate, or when leavers go into the world of work. A follow up survey of 3,695 young people aged 18-25 showed one in four LGBTQ+ adults go “back in the closet” when starting work, while 56% of trans respondents were unemployed.
Even for those in work, the bad news continues, with the survey finding a measurable LGBTQ+ pay gap, particularly for lesbians, asexual women, and trans people.
“It’s quite easy to assume that the march of progress is linear and keeps getting better,” Stuart says. “But in many ways, that’s not the case – you look at home office data and hate crime has more than doubled in five years; almost tripled in the case of anti-trans hate crime.”
Four core programmes
Having established the reasons why Just Like Us exists, how does the charity make a difference? There are four key programmes:
- Resources: a “huge resource library” of 300+ lesson plans and assemblies, used in 8,260 schools, 80% of all secondary schools in the UK, as well as 3,500 primary schools – “the biggest reach of all our programmes”
- School Diversity Week: the annual celebration of LGBTQ+ equality in schools, celebrated in primary and secondary schools across the UK every June
- The Ambassador Programme: 18–25-year-olds deliver talks across the UK every day on their lived experiences, promoting inclusion and allyship among pupils while developing their own leadership and employability skills
- Pride Groups: school clubs offering safe, supportive spaces for LGBTQ+ students and allies
All programmes are free for schools, removing any financial barriers to inclusion. This is possible thanks to the funding the charity receives, 40% of which comes from corporate partners and sponsors, and 60% from grants and individual donations.
Says Stuart: “We have this huge collective of 12,500 teachers that can just self-serve. They want their lessons to be more inclusive, but they might not feel prepared to. We’re able to provide these creative lessons, assemblies and video resources for them to make it easy and accessible.”
On the impact of the Ambassador Programme, Stuart adds: “It’s important that LGBT+ pupils in school have a relatable role model who’s only a few years older and so doesn’t look like a teacher, but also that has something good to say. Because so often queer stories are trauma, it’s good to give them hope that things get better, as well as teach their classmates how to be better allies.”
Deepening engagement
Although he is clearly proud of all the work that Just Like Us does, it’s the Ambassador Programme that most animates Stuart when he speaks.
“I recently met a teacher who used to be an ambassador, set up a Pride group, and now one of their pupils has turned 18 and become an ambassador too,” he says. “That kind of cycle is exactly what we want to see.”
This generational cycle is a great sign of the positive impact Just Like Us has had, although this really comes to life in the stories Stuart tells of individuals.
He speaks of one young ambassador, a working class lesbian who said, “Just Like Us has given me more opportunities and I’ve got more out of it than the university I paid £50,000 for!”
Stuart describes how, through her work as an ambassador and advocate for LGBTQ+ youth, she grew in confidence and presence as an effective public speaker. She even ended up getting her dream job as a result of working with a Just Like Us professional mentor.
Stuart also describes another ambassador who started at Just Like Us with anxiety so serious that they had been hospitalised for it. “They joined the ambassador programme, said they’d never found somewhere that was so welcoming, something they were able to take part in – which speaks to the diversity of our ambassadors and the access we’re able to provide.”
And it doesn’t stop there. Stuart tells the story of a young LGBTQ+ student who saw some older boys ripping up a Pride poster at her school. “And she was like; I am not standing for this!” he says with a proud smile.
The student went to her teachers, found resources from Just Like Us and set up a Pride group. She went on to introduce School Diversity Week and educated the boys on the challenges facing LGBTQ+ young people. Those boys have since become allies and led school assemblies on the topic – an incredible testament to the positive influence of good role models, timely support, and targeted education.
“Working for a charity that gives these amazing young people the tools they can use to do that is just fantastic!” Stuart says.
Partnerships and funding
It’s not just this that Stuart is proud of. He also speaks with pride of the corporate partnerships with big brands like Tesco, Deloitte, and Garnier, who provide the charity with funding and pro bono expertise in areas such as marketing, IT, legal, and operational support.
It’s largely because of this support that Just Like Us is able to run so lean – being a national charity with a network of 12,500 teachers in thousands of schools with a staff of just 14.
When I ask Stuart about his colleagues, he smiles again. Worried about missing out anyone, he mentions almost everyone by name as he speaks warmly of the value they bring.
Ex-teacher Frankie, who heads up the education programme, for example, managing School Diversity Week and the resource library. Or Kyle, who supports Frankie by training leaders in student Pride groups. There’s Lily, who does all the media training for the charity’s ambassadors, helping them write and place hundreds of articles in the media.
And then there’s Josh, the head of the ambassador programme, who Stuart says is “so much fun: the ambassadors love him.”
This is a role Stuart knows well, since he works closely with Josh on the personal and professional development of the ambassadors, finding businesses that can support them and help them refine the skills they need for success.
“I work with some really, really brilliant people,” Stuart says.
Generational change and moving the conversation
Given how challenging education and the workplace can be for young LGBTQ+ people, I ask if people really understand this. How open are people to talking about these problems?
For Stuart, there’s an observable generational difference. While young people are increasingly open to conversations about sexuality and identity in his experience, older generations often still avoid such discussions at home.
This is part of the reason why Just Like Us produced a guide for parents and carers funded by George Michael’s family, to help bridge that gap. George Michael’s family, I ask? Really?
“Yeah, because they read our stats on family estrangement,” Stuart says. “I think 46% of LGBT+ people are estranged from at least one family member, so they were looking to us to create this guide. Guides like this have been done before, but never with this much resource and effort put into it.”
The charity had hundreds of conversations with parents and young people and found that “parents just aren’t having any conversation about LGBTQ+ stuff at home. So we were asking them why that was, and they would say things like, ‘Oh, well, it feels like I’m gossiping by talking about someone being gay’, and then we have our actual responses from the young ambassadors saying, ‘Well, if there’s two dads at school gate, they’re out, it’s not gossiping – but by not talking about it, you’re creating a taboo or stigma’.” Stuart says.
What does the future hold for Just Like Us?
If progress isn’t linear and mental health issues, bullying, and prejudice persist for young LGBTQ+ people even as we head into 2026, Just Like Us has proved that inclusive education changes lives. Empowering young people to lead change creates lasting cultural impact.
So what comes next? Having shared resources with 80% of secondary schools in the UK, where does the charity go from here?
Well, besides broadening their regional reach, providing resources and doing talks in Welsh, it’s about deepening ties, offering more resources, training more ambassadors. And keeping going. Just Like Us has seen a steep increase in demand for services and already have more talks booked for this academic year in the first month of term than they delivered in the whole of last year.
As Stuart puts it: “I think it’s about understanding that we’re not there yet. We’ve got a lot done, but there’s a lot to do, and there’s still a lot to lose if we don’t keep going.”
Individuals can support Just Like Us by donating, mentoring, or helping their workplaces to partner with the charity.
For more information, contact stuart.brown@justlikeus.org, or at his LinkedIn
