A UNIQUE PROGRAM IN LA COUNTY TEACHES FOSTER CARE PROVIDERS AND SOCIAL WORKERS ABOUT LGBT KIDS
Los Angeles County has implemented a first-of-its-kind training model to educate social workers and foster parents about lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender kids, with the goal of reducing homophobia and giving LGBT foster kids a better chance at getting placed in accepting homes.
But LA County still struggles to find welcoming foster parents for LGBT kids in the child welfare system. Part of the problem is that social workers aren’t always aware that a child identifies as LGBT. Another problem is that the county is dealing with a major shortage of available foster families. LA County’s RISE program—created by the Los Angeles LGBT Center through a $13.3 million federal grant—aims to educate the foster parents that are out there, while providing support to struggling gay homeless and foster youth in need of caring homes.
In Los Angeles County, 20% of foster kids identify as (LGBT). To put that in perspective, LGBT young people represent just 7% of the nation’s general youth population.
Many LGBT former foster kids (and non-LGBT foster kids) end up homeless after they age out of the system. An estimated 40% of the 1.6 million homeless youth living in the US identify as LGBT. The majority of LGBT homeless teens are either rejected by their parents and forced out of their homes, have run away, faced abuse at home, or have aged out of the child welfare system, and without adequate support, have become homeless. LGBT teens are also more than twice as likely as heterosexual teens to attempt suicide.
Back in 2012, state legislators passed a law that orders care providers and foster parents to attend a yearly education session focused on LGBT children, their unique needs, and the difficulties they face. That training, however, is just 60 minutes a year.
The comprehensive Los Angeles program is still in its early stages, but has the potential to serve as a model for the rest of the nation.
KPCC’s Leo Duran has the story. Here’s how it opens:
Juana Zacharias is 18, and she’s like other teenage girls her age.
She loves make-up, has a closet overflowing with cute clothes and talks about how to date a Latina like her (“Just give us the password to your phone and a bag of hot Cheetos, we’ll be totally good.”)
But Juana isn’t like most girls – she’s trans. She is also a foster child who lives at a group home in Oxnard with five other kids.
She’s one of over 400,000 foster children in America. In Los Angeles, 20 percent of those kids identify as LGBT according to UCLA – which is double the rate of LGBT kids outside the foster care system.
Juana spent the last seven years in the system, herself, after her father passed away and her mother rejected her, moving from group home to group home.
“My first group home I didn’t identify as a transgender because I was scared,” she says. “All my girl clothes? I kind of made them into guy clothes.”
Experts say it would be better if foster children like Juana lived with foster parents.
“You need to go home to Thanksgiving. You need somebody to take you to the dentist or the airport,” says foster care expert Khush Cooper.
But kids like Juana had problems finding parents – sometimes even group homes – who are accepting.
“The probation officers even said to me it’s hard to find a placement for you because you’re transgender. A lot of people don’t want transgenders,” says Juana.
Los Angeles has been testing out ways to change that, but the future of those programs is uncertain.