Do You Serve LGBTQIA+ Children and Youth? Here Is the Latest Guidance
On March 2, 2022, the Children’s Bureau released an Information Memorandum (IM) with guidance for serving LGBTQI+ children and youth who are involved with the child welfare system. This publication is intended for Title IV-B and IV-E agencies; however, this is an important document for any organization working with LGBTQI+ children and youth.
This IM, titled Guidance for Title IV-B and IV-E Agencies When Serving LGBTQI+ Children and Youth provides an overview of how all aspects of a child or youth’s identity should be considered in their care, suggested program tools that agencies can use to support, encourage, and care for LGBTQI+ children and youth across the child welfare continuum, and recommendations that agencies can use to educate and provide training and support for families, parents, caregivers, and service providers in order to provide gender identity/expression affirming care to help children and families to thrive.
We are seeing children and youth who are LGBTQI+ enter foster care at disproportionate rates, many of them due to family conflict related to sexual orientation and gender identity. Support and training for these families is an integral component for preventing crises that lead to children or youth being removed from their homes due to these family conflicts. The need is great for child welfare agencies and other family serving organizations to provide support and training to these families.
The IM states that any “Title IV-E agency must ensure that children and youth in its care have caregivers who are trained in understanding developmentally appropriate activities for such children and youth” and that “each agency should familiarize itself and partner with community and local LGBTQI+ affirming entities that parents, kinship providers, prospective parents, and child-care institution authorities can access to assist them to support and care for an LGBTQI+ child or youth.” Title IV-E provides agencies with training funds to assist foster parents, kinship caregivers, and agency staff with understanding issues related to LGBTQI+ identities that are particularly relevant to children and youth in foster care.
It is clear that to best serve these children and youth, it is imperative that they are affirmed and supported, including in relation to their LGBTQI+ identities or having a non-conforming gender identity or expression. The Children’s Bureau stresses that this is an equity issue and should be viewed as such. Supporting and educating families, caregivers, and staff that work with these young people is essential.
Be Strong Families is dedicated to uplifting and healing youth and families together, and at the end of 2021 we dedicated our “Show Your Love for Families” annual campaign to support a new initiative to support the safety and affirmation of the LGBTQIA+ community. This work includes the creation of new Parent Café decks and training content surrounding LGBTQIA+ issues such as training that incorporates an introduction to the LGBTQIA+ community, research and best practices, family dynamics, and supportive approaches as well as new Café resources regarding parenting children who identify as gender expansive and/or queer. Another part of this initiative is to embark on collaborative research and development of an LGBTQIA+ youth empowerment resource that includes a non-binary approach to adolescent development. To learn more about our LGBTQIA+ initiative, click here.