Today’s Guest Blogger is Ann Rajkowski.

The Mallon, Aledort & Ferrera (2002) article entitled There’s No Place Like Home: Achieving Safety, Permanency and Well-being for Lesbian and Gay Adolescents in Out-of-Home Settings discusses an exploratory study conducted on youth residing in two gay-affirming social service agencies, one in New York City and one in Los Angeles. The study consisted of in-depth interviews with six youth in foster care and the further administration of anonymous questionnaires distributed to forty-five additional youth, also in care of the two agencies. The study aimed to measure the extent to which permanency, safety and well-being outcomes were being achieved for self-identified GLBTQ youth receiving services from these two gay-affirming agencies. The study sought to answer the following question: What are challenges presented in ensuring permanency, safety and well being for GLBTQ youth in a gay-affirming welfare environment? From the results of the study, the article offers some recommendations for future services in child welfare for self-identified gay and lesbian youth.

First of all, in terms of safety, the study first explored the sample groups’ past experiences of safety within their family systems and within the foster care system. The study found that all forty-five of the youth who completed the anonymous questionnaires reported experiences of verbal harassment and physical violence within their family systems. Additionally, the GLBTQ youth involved in the study reported feeling unsafe within their foster care placements and, additionally, felt as if they had to to hide their sexual orientation from their foster caregivers. Further, seventy-eight percent of the young people interviewed and eighty-eight percent of the child welfare professionals interviewed in the study reported that group homes and congregate care settings were frequently not safe placements for self-identified GLBTQ youth, as they have often faced verbal and physical harassment by other youth and staff in these settings.

Second, concerning permanency, the overall mean length of time in out-of home placements for the sample group equaled 4.2 years, and the average number of placements equaled 6.35. Further, most of youth involved in the study had no plans to be reunified with their families of origin. The main reasons identified by the youth for lack of permanency in out-of-home placements were feelings that the placement was a poor fit, as well as having to hide their sexual orientation from their substitute caregivers. Frequently, the youth studied reported being estranged from their families of origin due to their sexual identity. Moreover, thirty percent of the sample group had spent some period of time living on the streets, often feeling safer on the streets than in the out-of-home placement settings.

Concerning specific mental and physical health needs of GLBTQ youth, the study found that many GLBTQ youth face issues of trauma and sexual assault, substance abuse, suicidal ideation, eating disorders and chronic stress from verbal harassment and fear of having their sexual identities discovered, as well as navigating safety concerns around their sexual identities being revealed. Moreover, many of the GLBTQ youth report feeling unsafe in their school settings, often facing verbal harassment and physical violence overlooked by school staff (Mallon et al., 2002).

Strengths of the Article:

The article highlights the need for targeted and appropriate child welfare services for GLBTQ youth, keeping safety concerns and GLBTQ acceptance by foster care providers as paramount considerations in placement options. Further, the study reveals the crucial significance of developing competencies and skills in child protection workers for working with parents of GLBTQ youth, in order to keep youth in their families of origin by assisting parents in understanding and dealing with their feelings about having a GLBTQ identifying child. The results of the study indicate that more states should develop gay-affirming placements with trained staff that possess the skills in understanding the needs of GLBTQ youth involved in the child welfare system. Moreover, the article clearly highlights needs of an often invisible population involved in the child welfare system: GLBTQ youth. The article clearly illustrates the need for greater training among child welfare staff in terms of GLBTQ issues.

Limitations of the Article:

The weakest point of the article is that most of the conclusions drawn are based on one study involving a small sample size. It would prove extremely benefical to the conversation to understand the experiences of a greater number of GLBTQ youth in varying areas of the US and internationally.

Article’s Relevance Concerning Permanency:

The article accurately portrays the concept that permanency can only exist when there is a bond of acceptance between the caregivers and the child. When that does not exist, permanency and well being will also not exist. Concerning GLBTQ youth, ensuring permanency in placement can be more challenging as the fit between the child and the caregivers cannot be merely based on similar cultural backgrounds and personalities, but instead on a sense of openness, as well as on an alignment in values between the youth and the new caregivers. Further, for GLBTQ youth, there must be an understanding on the part of the caregivers  of the homophobia the youth may face in society and the consequences of this exposure to societal homophobia on mental health and well-being. If child welfare workers are not accurately assessing foster care providers for the previously mentioned factors concerning GLBTQ youth, the workers are not effectively promoting permanency in their placement decisions.

Works Cited:
Mallon, G.P., Aledort, N. & Ferrera, M. (2002). There’s No Place Like Home:
Achieving Safety, Permanency and Well-being for Lesbian and Gay
Adolescents in Out-of-Home Care Settings. Child Welfare League of America, 81(2), 407-439.

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