Support Staff

Support Staff is a community of hospitality professionals working alongside mental health professionals, and community organizers to change the structures of the hospitality industry. Support Staff’s goals are to break down the stigmas surrounding mental health, give employers tools to better support their employees, and give hourly employees tools to better advocate for their well-being. The hospitality industry relies heavily on the emotional labor of its employees, which leads to the inevitable dehumanization of the individuals within this industry. It is an incredibly unsustainable business model, and has led to many untimely, and preventable, deaths. Support Staff’s target demographic encompasses all hospitality industry professionals within Chicago. Since mental health affects everyone – all socioeconomic backgrounds, all ethnicities, ages, and gender and sex orientations – nobody within Chicago's hospitality community is outside of the scope of our work.