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)

Family Acceptance Project ™ (FAP)

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

Fight for Our Girls: Introduction

Through this series, Fight for Our
Girls, the Center for the Study of
Social Policy’s Alliance for Racial
Equity in Child Welfare seeks to radically shift the narrative surrounding girls of color and status offenses from a focus on delinquency and misbehavior to structural discrimination, trauma and youth well-being. This is an introduction to a series of briefs that will promote programs, policies and initiatives aimed at developing a trauma-informed approach to addressing status offenses and supporting the ability of girls of color to thrive.

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

Green Chimneys

Green Chimneys was a transitional living program that operates in the state of New York. No longer operating in New York City, the program provided beds to homeless or at-risk LGBTQ youth between the ages of 17 to 21.

Nolan, 2006

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”), a three-year effort undertaken by Family Builders by Adoption, in partnership with the California Department of Social Services, to implement CWLA’s Best Practice Guidelines for Serving LGBT Youth in Out of Home Care in several county child welfare systems in California. 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)

Guidelines for Psychological Practice with Transgender and Gender Nonconforming People

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

In this report, 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. There have been changes in practice in recent years, with many doctors now advising against surgery on infants and young children. But even so, surgery continues to be practiced on children with atypical sex characteristics too young to participate in the decision, when those procedures both carry a meaningful risk of harm and can be safely deferred.

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.