Why we’ve launched a new website

Just Like Us, the LGBT+ young people’s charity, is rebranding. 

We have a new logo, website, font and fresh look that we are very excited to share with you.

Our new range of colours and shapes are one way we celebrate the diversity of our LGBT+ community.

The website has been designed with teachers and young people in mind – it’s now easier than ever to find and download resources to make classrooms LGBT+ inclusive.

We hope you like it! Get in touch to let us know your feedback.

We’d also like to say a huge thank you to Ascential for their incredible support with our rebrand, as well as Battenhall for their wonderful help in creating GIFs and graphics to celebrate this launch.

As we make these changes and prepare for the next five years at Just Like Us, growing up LGBT+ is still unacceptably tough.

In June 2021, we released our Growing Up LGBT+ report, compiling our independent research (conducted by Cibyl) into the experiences of school staff and pupils across the UK.

We found that LGBT+ young people are currently twice as likely to be bullied, be lonely and experience depression than their peers. We urgently need to change this.

The good news? Our independent research found that having positive messaging about being LGBT+ in schools in linked to all pupils being less likely to contemplate suicide, whether they are LGBT+ or not. 

The evidence is clear: LGBT+ inclusive education benefits all. Bringing LGBT+ equality to the classroom creates an environment where everyone – pupils who may be LGBT+ or not, or may have LGBT+ families, as well as school staff – can thrive.

Since launching in February 2016, Just Like Us has trained over 600 LGBT+ young people as ambassadors, who have spoken about allyship to more than 50,000 pupils in our school talks.

In 2018, we launched our Pride Groups programme to train teachers to set up pupil-led LGBT+ and ally groups. Over 140 schools are now on the programme.

Every year we run School Diversity Week, which has grown from just a few hundred teachers signing up to schools representing over 2,800,000 pupils in 2021.

The next five years at Just Like Us will be guided by the realities found in our independent research: LGBT+ young people need safer and more welcoming schools, to be less isolated, know where and how to access mental health support, and feel more optimistic about their futures.

We aim to reach more primary and secondary schools than ever before in the next five years and develop our Ambassador Programme into the UK’s number one LGBT+ youth volunteering opportunity, to ultimately improve the lives of LGBT+ young people across the UK.

If you’d like to support Just Like Us’ work, please donate, start a fundraiser, get involved or share this blog on social media.

Thank you for your support,

Dominic Arnall

Chief Executive of Just Like Us, the LGBT+ young people’s charity