Family Acceptance Project
In honor of Pride month, I wanted to highlight a policy initiative to help prevent physical and mental health risks for LGBTQ+ youth, such as suicide, homelessness, drug use, and HIV/AIDs: Family Acceptance Project. The Family Acceptance Project’s goals are to address these risks through research-based and “culturally-grounded approach to help ethnically, racially and religiously diverse families learn to support their LGBTQ children” (Family Acceptance Project). This project is based at the San Francisco State University, but offers training to any agency, institution, congregation, or community. Cultural and ethnic differences affect how a family may approach their LGBTQ+ child’s coming out and determine the initial responses (Bhugra, 2016). It is incredibly important to try to meet families where they are culturally and find a way, within their home culture, of integrating the new knowledge to help minimize the harm a harsh familial response could cause a child. This project is important, but also relies on organizations coming to them for training. A nationwide initiative based on this model would be ideal so families have access to counselors, as often family rejection is the first step to negative outcomes (Katz-Wise, Rosario & Tsappis, 2016).
Bhugra, D. 2016. Cultural variations in LGBT issues. World Psychiatric Association, London. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eurpsy.2016.01.982
Family Acceptance Project. Family Acceptance Project ® | (sfsu.edu)
Katz-Wise, S., Rosario, M., & Tsappis, M. 2016. LGBT Youth and Family Acceptance. Pediatric Clinic North America. 2016;63(6):1011-1025. https://doi: 10.1016/j.pcl.2016.07.005.