Help in your pocket.

How do you reach out to queer youths in the bustle of the Big Apple? Give them something they can walk away with, says one advocacy group.

With funding from the Allstate Foundation, the New York Anti-Violence Project's Youth Anti-Violence Initiative has created a series of colorful pocket guides just for gay youths ages 13 to 18. The credit card-size pamphlets, designed in bright colors and hip fonts, fold out to reveal useful facts, tips, and phone numbers. And they've proved to be a big hit among those who really need them.

Jill Kennedy, a 19-year-old Mount Holyoke sophomore who interned with the AVP over the summer, helped distribute the guides to her peers. "They were really excited to get something that was geared directly toward them," Kennedy says. "They're used to getting [only] general information."

Currently the AVP is offering four different guides dealing with queers in foster care, homeless gay youths, gay youths and police, and queer public school students. The "LGTBQ and the NYPD" guide, for example, explains what a "pat down" is and what to do if arrested. It instructs gay youths that they don't have to answer certain questions or tolerate inappropriate touching.

"We're not saying disrespect the NYPD, but we're also saying the NYPD is made up of human beings; we all come with our baggage, and here's the way to deal with some of that stuff," says Kim Fountain, associate director of education and public advocacy at the AVP. So far, about 2,000 of the guides have been distributed at pride events and through other organizations.

The guides are part of the AVFs new focus on young queers, says Clarence Patton, the group's acting executive director. The number of gay youths calling in for help was up from 178 in 2003 to 261 in 2004, and it reached 171 by the end of July this year. "As soon as you open the door and begin to establish some level of trust, it's really an 'if you build it, they will come' kind of thing," he says.