A new website offers LGBTQ youth and their families and caregivers access to accurate, affirming, culturally based resources that can decrease mental health risks and promote well-being. These resources are especially critical at a time when healthcare professionals have declared a national emergency in children’s and adolescent’s mental health.
The LGBTQ Family Acceptance website is a collaboration between the Family Acceptance Project (FAP) and the Institute for Innovation & Implementation at the University of Maryland School of Social Work. The growing site has compiled a wealth of resources including support services for LGBTQ youth; peer support for parents, caregivers, and families; LGBTQ community centers; LGBTQ health clinics; gender clinics; school supports; affirming faith-based organizations and resources; and culture-based resources for ethnically and racially diverse LGBTQ communities nationwide. Over time, the site will also provide a series of webinars and family guidance materials on topics such as integrating FAP’s family support model into Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and advice from Asian parents on supporting their transgender children.
The initiative also includes an ongoing social media component, featuring graphics by young queer artist Sam Kirk, founder of Provoke Culture, that illustrate how family accepting and rejecting behaviors impact health and well-being for LGBTQ children and youth.
Caitlin Ryan, director of FAP, noted:
Although awareness has increased significantly of the risks that LGBTQ youth experience, there is still widespread lack of understanding of the essential role of family support in protecting against mental health risks and increasing well-being for LGBTQ youth. Our social media and online resources will help educate parents and caregivers on the compelling impact of family rejecting and accepting behaviors on their child’s risk for suicide, drug use, and other serious health risks. Simple changes in how families respond to their LGBTQ children can make a powerful difference in preventing risk and building healthy futures. As families gather for the holidays this year, we are releasing this new resource to help decrease isolation and increase support for both LGBTQ youth and their families.
“Simple changes in how families respond to their LGBTQ children can make a powerful difference in preventing risk and building healthy futures.”
FAP is a 20-year-old initiative, affiliated with San Francisco State University, that developed the first evidence-based family support model to help ethnically, racially, and religiously diverse families support their LGBTQ children. Prior to their work, families were seen as adversaries, not allies—and health care providers, social workers, and educators were serving LGBTQ youth alone and through peer support, not by engaging their families. In contrast, FAP has used hard data to give families non-judgmental evidence of how specific rejecting or accepting behaviors affect their children’s health risks and well-being. Through a combination of research, intervention, education, and policy, they have shown how to promote well-being for LGBTQ children and adolescents in the context of their families, cultures, and faith communities. Cultural leaders and community members from diverse backgrounds have helped FAP develop culturally grounded educational resources in 11 languages, which can be accessed through the LGBTQ Family Acceptance website.
I’ve been covering FAP’s work for many years now, most recently in October, when they launched a poster series for American Indian families and communities to support LGBTQ and Two Spirit (LGBTQ2S) children and youth. And last May, they released eight research-backed Asian language posters for Asian American and Pacific Islander parents to help their LGBTQ children thrive. They offer a great example of how to combine research with action for real-life results that have a positive impact on young people’s lives.
The Institute for Innovation & Implementation, founded in 2005, is committed to building research-based, inclusive, culturally responsive, and transformative child-, youth- and family-serving systems and services, and to developing the capacity of the workforce within these systems, in order to improve outcomes for children, youth, and their families. They do so in partnership with government agencies, health care providers, youth and their families, and community-based organizations.
The new LGBTQ Family Acceptance website is a great starting point and ongoing hub for parents, family members, caretakers, educators, health care professionals, and anyone wanting to learn more about how best to support LGBTQ children and youth. Check it out and refer anyone who may benefit from it.
(Full disclosure: I did some paid consulting work for FAP in 2013.)