Founded by Tahtianna Fermin and based in Hackensack, New Jersey, Bridges4Life is an organization built on helping the Transgender Non-Conforming Community; by providing services to children in the foster care system, young adults, and surviving sex workers.

Bridges4Life is a holistic partnership to address the problems of aging-out services within the foster care system. It focuses on developing a healthy comprehensive grassroots initiative. Furthermore, by empowering social change agencies to develop local strategies for urban service, Bridges4Life’s objective is to work within existing programs and resources to leverage new opportunities for the teens and young adults involved in the program. The coalition started with a vision to help transition teens who are products of the foster care system and street life’s into adulthood. A comprehensive urban plan called “Bridges4Life” sets forth a vision, goal areas, and outcomes to organize resources throughout the community for the purpose of transforming teens and young adults into responsible, self-sufficient, confident, and educated adults.

Bridges4Life serves the New Jersey and New York area, offering housing services, mentorship, life skills training, recovery coaching, financial support and safe space for our TGNC community.

WEEKLY SUPPORT GROUP

Please join Bridges4Life’s weekly support group on Sundays from 3 p.m. -4 p.m. Eastern Time. The support group prioritizes space for Black Trans People, but we welcome all Trans and gender non-conforming people.

The Bridges4 Life support group strives to foster a space for people with similar lived experiences and social identities to reflect, heal, and build community. Support groups are frequently informal resources that encourage collective learning about responding to events, changes, and challenges in our lives and communities. 

At the end of every meeting, there is a giveaway and one support group member wins $100. Please contact us or email us at [email protected] if you’re interested in joining or learning more about Bridges4Life’s weekly support group. 

RECOVERY COACHING & MENTORING

Recovery coaching is often strengths-based and action-oriented with the intention to support people who are in recovery or are contemplating recovery from substance use disorders. Bridges4Life strives to supports clients primarily with two strategies:

Harm Reduction aims to reduce “negative consequences associated with drug use. Harm Reduction is also a movement for social justice built on a belief in, and respect for, the rights of people who use drugs.” Strategies may include “safer use, managed use, abstinence, meeting people who use drugs ‘where they’re at,’ and addressing conditions of use along with the use itself” (National Harm Reduction Coalition). 

Abstinence-based recovery often involves self-enforced cessation from substances. 

Recovery coaches neither diagnose nor provide primary treatment (Wikipedia). 

HOUSING SERVICES

Bridges4Life aims to provide housing information and resources. Bridges4Life also strives to connect clients with more organizations and resources when our organization does not have the expertise to directly support the client due to geographical and/or situational reasons. 

Bridges4Life aspires to ensure TGNCBC (Transgender, Gender Nonconfirming, Nonbinary) community members—especially Black Trans young people aging out of the foster system—have access to housing, resources, and skill building. Bridges4Life dreams to someday provide housing for over two hundred women of trans experiences. 

Eligibility	Transgender Non-Conforming Community and children in foster care
Age Groups	Children Adolescents Adults
Community Services	Family & Support Services Adoption / Foster Care
Health Services	Crisis / Safety Crisis / Safety / Prevention

Last Updated: 06/23/23