Spaces that Affirm Identity: Service Provision for Children and Youth with Diverse Genders and/or Sexualities

It is essential that adults working with people with gender and sexual diversities have the skills and knowledge to open the conversation, use language that promotes dignity, offer effective allyship in internalized, interpersonal, institutional, and cultural interactions and offer strength-based supports that are informed by evidence. Practitioners have a role in ensuring supportive relationships for 2SLGBTQI young people, facilitating family affirmation, advocating when youth need to transition, using pronouns and names to build health, responding appropriately to discrimination trauma, and advocating for systemic change.  It’s a big job, but the positive mental and physical health impacts are documented.  

This online, interactive 6-hour training will be an opportunity to practice skills and plan practical steps to address trauma experienced by 2SLGBTQI young people and to share strategies for supporting youth who are “inviting in” (new language for “coming out”), in transition, or trying to navigate erasure, rejection, or unsafe home environments.

This training has significant opportunities for interaction, so registrants do not need any prior knowledge or experience but should come prepared to interact and share ideas.

Learning Outcomes

1. Use language that promotes dignity, including affirming pronouns, appropriate use of gender expansive language, and reviewing intake forms, questions and interactions for relevance, representation and promoting youth agency.
2. Employ strength-based supports that are informed by evidence to affirm people with gender and sexual diversities.
3. Implement effective communication with allyship to 2SLGBTQI people in internalized, interpersonal, institutional, and cultural interactions.
4. Outline helpful and evidence-based resources to build awareness within organizations and communities.