LGBTQIA+ Initiative Progress Update
We made promises as part of our annual Show Your Love for Families fundraising campaign last December and we are working hard to fulfill them. Consistent with our commitment to racial equity and EDI and in response to requests from partners for resources to assist in meeting the needs of LGBTQIA+ BIPOC families, we said we would partner with people with lived experiences and experts in LGBTQIA+ organizations to expand our products and services. There are three main areas we’ve been working on:
Revising our flagship Parent Cafe in a Box conversation deck to be fully inclusive of the needs of LGBTQIA+ parents
Developing a booster conversation deck for Parent Cafes with questions for parents whose children are identifying as part of the LGBTQIA+ community
Publishing a researched white paper and tools / infographic for understanding healthy adolescent development as gender expansive, inclusive of diverse sexual orientations, and not biased towards the norms of individualistic mainstream dominant culture.
On to the specifics!
LGBTQIA+ Lens Transforms Parent Café in a Box
"Until we are all free, we are none of us free." – Emma Lazarus
The design team led by Kathryn Goetz and Letechia Holmes of Be Strong Families with three members of the National Parent Café Leadership Team: Chris Thornton who is also on the Be Strong Families Board of Directors, Mindie Bentcik, and Nick Clinton-Elliott; Vida Khavar from Family Builders; Yaffa Abojaradeh an independent equity and transformation consultant; and Tameka Caldwell a family support coordinator located in Dallas-Fort Worth has been hard at work for the past six weeks reviewing and editing existing questions and creating and substituting new ones for Be Strong Families’ original flagship conversation deck.
The consensus of the group is that in working to include an LGBTQIA+ lens, the result will be a deck updated for 2022 with Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion fully integrated. The co-creative process has been inspiring to the group members, several of whom commented,
“I have never been in a group or a process like this where there was no ego.”
When you add this deck to your Café Supplies you will be able to promote conversations around 96 new questions such as:
How and when have you successfully defended your children and family and felt victorious or content after?
How have you struggled to be your authentic self in the world, when those close to you are not accepting? What has helped?
What are the rules for “sleepovers” in your house and how have they changed over time?
When have you misgendered someone and what did you learn?
How do you find a provider whose biases or personal values don’t negatively impact your care?
What’s your experience with unconditional love and parenting?
How do you talk to your children about the differences between your family’s structure and society’s stereotypical expectations?
How do you know if your children are being kind to peers who are different from them? When they’re not, what do you do?
What do parenting gender roles look like in your household (or family if you’re not living with your child’s other parent)?
The 2022 Parent Cafe in a Box will be available in November. Pre-order here.
What is Healthy Adolescent Development in 2022?
Be Strong Families is developing a new resource to assist teens, parents, and professionals in understanding and discussing adolescent development with respect to sexual orientation and gender identity expression (SOGIE). This new tool will also address the outdated white-Eurocentric assumptions that exist in the current models of adolescent development such as binary gender, individuation, and rebellion. Research on the intersections of identity and the mosaic model of gender/sexuality identity development show that adolescent development does not follow the same trajectory or have the same characteristics for all young people. In addition, research on the identity development of the BIPOC community has often focused on risk factors and negative outcomes. More flexible, complex, and inclusive models are needed to normalize the experiences of those who were not represented in the previous theories of development. The goal is to reflect the lived experiences of youth in today’s society more accurately in a way that is respectful of the complex intersections of identity and empowering for all youth.
Transpersonal psychologist and researcher, Dr. Sabrina Rock, is currently writing a white paper that will provide the evidence to support the need for a more inclusive model of development. As part of this process, she will be conducting focus groups and interviews in the next few weeks with youth and emerging adults to ensure that their perspectives are reflected, and their needs included in the new resources. The working title for the paper is “Integrating diverse perspectives: A mosaic model of adolescent identity development.” The paper demonstrates how changes in society’s views on gender and sexuality are reflected in the American Psychological Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual criteria for diagnosing (and pathologizing) gender identity issues.
Call for Action: If you are a youth or young adult or know of any youth or young adult who would like to share their voice and experience please reach out to Kathryn Goetz at kathryn@bestrongfamilies.net.
Let’s Talk About SOGIE* in Parent Cafés
*Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Expression
August 24th was the first meeting of the design team for Be Strong Families’ newest Parent Café Booster Pack: a conversation deck of questions for parents whose children are identifying as part of the LGBTQIA+ community. While most approaches to this issue rest heavily on training for parents about the importance of acceptance for long-term positive outcomes for children, these Cafés are for parents who don’t need to be convinced. They love their children, they want to support them, and they are wrestling with their own feelings, values, fears, and limiting beliefs.
The foundation for the deck is 1) the assumption of parents’ unconditional love for their children and their willingness to practice self-awareness and surface and interrogate their biases, and 2) full knowledge of the benefits of listening and talking through thorny subjects in the safe context of Parent Cafés. The design team is a collaboration of parents with lived experience supporting their children’s gender and sexual orientation journey to discover and live true to who they are, as well as professionals who have devoted their professional lives to assisting LGBTQIA+ youth and the adults who love them. The design team is led by Be Strong Families staff members Sarita Sashington, Kathryn Goetz, Letechia Holmes, and Lori Sanchez with: Mindie Bentcik a member of the National Parent Café Leadership Team, Tameka Caldwell a family support coordinator located in Dallas-Fort Worth; Joanne Hoyland, and Kristine Stanik, all moms with lived experience; Carmen Paulino, chair of HRC (Human Rights Campaign)’s All Children—All Families Council of Parent of Trans and Nonbinary Kids; Vida Khavar from Family Builders / Youth Acceptance Project, Renee Lehocky, Director of Strategic Initiatives at Lawrence Hall and founding member of the Illinois DCFS LGBTQ Round Table; Jenna Redmond (Hackman), Director of Family and Educational Programming at Gender Spectrum; and Yaffa Abojaradeh, equity and transformation consultant. The design team will be informed by feedback from focus groups of BIPOC parents along the continuum of acceptance and the deck will be fully vetted by the National Parent Café Leadership Team.
A review team of parents associated with the National Parent Cafe Leadership Team and Be Strong Families’ cafes is also coalescing. This group will be made up of parents in the target audience for the deck.
The deck will be ready for Summer 2023. Pre-order your copy today and be ready to have these conversations by June!