CWLA Best Practice Guidelines: Serving LGBTQ Youth in Out-of-Home Care
This easy-to-use resource contains the first-ever set of comprehensive professional guidelines for how child welfare and juvenile justice professionals can best serve LGBT youth in state care. The Best Practice Guidelines for Serving LGBT Youth in Out of Home Care developed out of recommendations from the Model Standards Project, a collaboration between Legal Services for Children and the National Center for Lesbian Rights.
Child Welfare League of America (2006)
Ensuring Competent Residential Interventions for Youth with Diverse Gender and Sexual Identities and Expressions
This paper focuses on the many issues faced in the field in providing quality residential interventions for youth of sexual diversity, including sexual orientation and gender identity. For lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, intersex, and two-spirit (LGBTQI2-S) youth in residential care, open expression of sexuality or gender identity can be a significant challenge, with many barriers faced both within the program and in the community at large. This paper provides guidelines and strategies for serving and supporting LGBTQI2-S youth, building on the efforts of programs that have successfully created “sexual and gender minority-positive” cultures.
American Association of Children’s Residential Centers (2014)
Expanding Resources for Children III: Research-Based Best Practices in Adoption by Gays and Lesbians
This resources offers best practice guidelines for supporting gay and lesbian adoptive parents.
Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute (2011)
FAP is a research, intervention, education, and policy initiative targeting families of LGBTQ youth and young adults to prevent health and mental health risks and promote well-being. FAP has developed a research-based family intervention model to help diverse families learn to support their LGBT children to promote permanency and reconnect LGBT youth and families. FAP produces multilingual family education materials and videos that are “Best Practice” resources for LGBT youth, with assessment tools, key practice guidelines, and training for human service workers and families. FAP’s model provides services and supports for LGBT youth in the context of their families, cultures, and faith communities.
Dr. C. Ryan, San Francisco State University
Gay Affirmative Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Sexual Minority Youth
Cognitive Behavior Therapy that has been adapted to ensure (a) an affirming stance toward LGBTQ+ identities, (b) recognition and awareness of LGBTQ+-specific sources of stress, and (c) the delivery of CBT content within an affirming, developmentally relevant and trauma-informed framework. AFFIRM helps clients to identify and challenge internalized stigma and negative core beliefs in a safe and supportive clinical context.
Shelley L. Craig, Ashley Austin, Edward Alessi
Getting Down to Basics- Tools to Support LGBTQ Youth in Care
This toolkit offers practice time and information to ensure that LGBTQ youth in child welfare and juvenile justice system receive affirming support and services while engaged in out-of-home care.
Child Welfare League of America & Lambda Legal (2013)
Guidelines for Managing Information Related to the Sexual Orientation & Gender Identity and Expression of Children in the Child Welfare System
This publication was developed in conjunction with the Putting Pride into Practice Project (“P4”).
The project provides training and technical assistance to build agency capacity and improve organizational competency through leadership and policy development, community and constituency engagement, and recruitment, training and support of placement resources.
Family Builders, Legal Services for Children, National Center for Lesbian Rights, Center for the Study of Social Policy (2013)
Psychologists who work with transgender or gender nonconforming people should seek to provide acceptance, support and understanding without making assumptions about their clients’ gender identities or gender expressions, according to practice guidelines adopted during the American Psychological Association’s 123rd Annual Convention.
American Psychological Association (2015)
I Want to Be Like Nature Made Me: Medically Unnecessary Surgeries on Intersex Children in the US
Based on interviews with intersex adults, parents of intersex children, and medical practitioners working with intersex people, interACT and Human Rights Watch document the fall-out from that medical paradigm, and the failure of the medical community to regulate itself effectively.
American Psychological Association (2015)
Just as They Are: Protecting Our Children from the Harms of Conversion Therapy
This resource will help parents recognize when and how conversion therapy is promoted, provides information about the dangers of the practice, and offers guidance to parents regarding practices that promote their child’s health and well-being.
Human Rights Campaign Foundation (2017)
Latinx LGBTQ+ Immigrant Youth: A Provider Fact Sheet
This Each Mind Matters fact sheet was created as a resource for service providers, including nonprofit staff, community-based organizations, health care professionals, and other providers. It provides an introduction to the unique challenges faced by Latinx LGBTQ+ immigrant youth, relevant resources, and best practices.
In English and Spanish.
Lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) youth within in welfare: Prevalence, risk and outcomes
The purpose of this study was to estimate the population of sexual minority or LGB (lesbian, gay and bisexual) children and youth involved with the child welfare system, and to compare their health, mental health, placement and permanency outcomes to those of non-LGB youth. Data were drawn from the Second National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being (NSCAW-II), a nationally representative sample of children who were referred to child welfare due to a report of abuse or neglect over a fifteen month period.
