Breadcrumb
- Federal Resources
Federal Resources
Four Tips for Serving LGBTQ Young People in Rural Communities
This blog post addresses the unique challenges of serving lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) youth in rural places. Written by the executive director of Tumbleweed Runaway Program in Billings, MT, it also suggests how youth-serving professionals in rural areas can make their services and communities welcoming to all young people.
How Are the Lives of LGBTQ Youth Improved by Gay-Straight Alliances?
This article, featured by the National Clearinghouse on Families and Youth, discusses a recent study released in the School Social Work Journal that compared 284 lesbian, gay, bisexual, questioning (LGBTQ) youth in schools with gay-straight alliances with LGBTQ students in schools without those alliances to discern whether the presence of such organizations improved outcomes for young people. The study suggests that membership in a gay-straight alliance has some positive effects on LGBTQ youth, but more research is necessary.
Online Sexual Health Resources
The Department of Health and Human Services’ National Clearinghouse on Families and Youth released this list of recommended resources on sexually transmitted diseases, including information geared specifically to teens and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning youth.
Primary Sources: Learning How Service Providers and Policy Makers Can Help LGBTQ Homeless Youth
This article provides information about a research review that aimed to determine directions for research, public policy, and practice related to serving homeless youth who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning. The article also includes potential implications of the research for policies and practices of youth-serving organizations. Researchers at Harvard Medical School conducted the research review.
Q&A: Meeting the Needs of Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming Youth
The National Clearinghouse on Families and Youth published this Q&A with Shannon Minter, legal director at the National Center for Lesbian Rights, featuring tips for working specifically with transgender and gender non-conforming youth.
Resources for Serving Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Youth
The Family and Youth Services Bureau (FYSB) provides a list of resources for those serving LGBT youth including helpful publications and LGBT-youth focused organizations.
The Equal Access to Housing Rule and Youth
This Q&A from the Department of Health and Human Services explains how the federal rule, “Equal Access to Housing in HUD Programs Regardless of Sexual Orientation or Gender Identity,” will benefit youth.
Voices from the Field: LGBT-Friendly Teen Pregnancy Prevention
This podcast by the National Clearinghouse on Youth and Families (NCFY) features program coordinator at the Bristol HUB Youth Center in Vermont, Ryan Krushenick, who leads a popular teen pregnancy prevention curriculum tailored to be welcoming to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth. He talks to NCFY how to practice inclusive teen pregnancy prevention work.
NCFY Voices: Does It Get Better for LGBTQ Teens?
In this podcast, Michelle Birkett, a researcher at Northwestern University's Feinburg School of Medicine, describes a study she co-authored on the mental health and victimization of LBGTQ youth and how it progresses over time.
5 Online Resources to Help Domestic Violence Programs Offer Inclusive Services to LGBTQ People
NCFY has compiled a list of resources that can help anti-violence programs provide inclusive services to LGBTQ youth. This information is pertinent to organizations that receive funding authorized through the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2013, as they are required to provide mainstream services to survivors who identify as LGBTQ.
Research: Does Sexual Orientation Affect Teen Pregnancy Risk?
This article describes a study that used data from the 2005, 2007, and 2009 New York City Youth Risk Behavior Surveys to understand how sexual orientation affects high-school students' risk of getting pregnant or getting someone pregnant. Results show that a young person’s sexual orientation and the gender of their sexual partners was strongly linked with risk of getting pregnant or getting someone pregnant, suggesting that adolescent pregnancy prevention efforts focused exclusively on heterosexual young people may be too narrow.
Report: Surviving the Streets of New York: Experiences of LGBTQ Youth, YMSM, and YWSW Engaged in Survival Sex
The Urban Institute released a report (PDF, 94 pages), supported by OJJDP, on involvement in the juvenile justice, criminal justice, and child welfare systems and youth engaging in survival sex who self-identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or questioning (LGBTQ); young men who have sex with men (YMSM); and young women who have sex with woman (YWSW). The report offers practice and policy recommendations to repurpose law enforcement-based responses to youth engaged in survival sex and services to meet their needs without system involvement.
Resource: Helping Youth Prevent Suicide Among Their LGBTQ Peers
This article highlights free resources educators and youth service providers can use to implement the Trevor Project’s Lifeguard Workshop, a program encouraging young people to be “lifeguards” for one another by having the knowledge to help in a crisis. Professionals can request a free, in-person workshop or use the resources highlighted in the article to create personalized trainings.
Report: Recommendations of the LGBT Subcommittee: Advancing the Reform Process for LGBQ/GNCT Youth in the Juvenile Justice System
This report (PDF, 11 pages) summarizes the recommendations of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender (LGBT) Subcommittee of the Federal Advisory Committee on Juvenile Justice to OJJDP on strategies to advance juvenile justice reform for lesbian, gay, bisexual, questioning/gender nonconforming, transgender (LGBQ/GNCT) youth. The recommendations are grouped into four categories:
- Policy and program development,
- Training and technical assistance,
- Data collection and research, and
- Federal LGBT juvenile justice coordination.
Family and Youth Services Bureau (FYSB)
FYSB supports the organizations and communities that work every day to reduce the risk of youth homelessness, adolescent pregnancy and domestic violence. Learn more about FYSB programs.
Introduction to Positive Youth Development
The National Clearinghouse on Families & Youth has recently updated its two-part, self-paced online training, “Introduction to Positive Youth Development.” The modules focus on explaining the concepts and theories of positive youth development, and how this information can be put into practice.
Learn More About Positive Youth Development
Learn more about Positive Youth Development with this resource by RHY. Positive Youth Development (PYD) 101 Online is a series of short courses intended to introduce PYD to new youth work professionals, volunteers, and advocates.
Make a Friend-Be a Peer Mentor
This Bulletin explains to youth how peer mentoring works, how to become a peer mentor, and how to create and maintain a strong peer mentor network.
National Mentoring Resource Center
The goal of the National Mentoring Resource Center is to improve the quality and effectiveness of mentoring across the country by supporting youth mentoring practitioners.
NCFY Voices: The Youth Dreamers Think Big
Two young people from Youth Dreamers share how they raised money to build a safe place for youth in their community to go after school. Youth Dreamers is a youth leadership group in Baltimore, MD.
PEPNet: Connecting Juvenile Offenders to Education and Employment
This factsheet discusses the process and criteria behind PEPnet, a practice-based system that identifies and promotes effective youth development and employment programs and maintains an extensive database resource.
Public/Private Ventures' Evaluation of Faith-Based Programs
This factsheet reports the initial findings of a demonstration project to observe faith-based organizations providing services to at-risk youth. The project hopes to foster better connections between these organizations and other institutions.
Putting Positive Youth Development Into Practice: A Resource Guide
This guide provides information about how you can put positive youth development principles into practice
Underage Drinking Training Center
(UDET) Center is to create healthier and safer environments in States, local communities, and Federal entities engage in environmental prevention and enforcement practices that proactively and effectively limit youth access to alcohol and significantly reduce harmful consequences associated with alcohol use by underage youth
Youth Workers: When Did You Make the Biggest Difference in a Youth’s Life?
In the first of a new video series from the Department of Health and Human Services’ National Clearinghouse on Families and Youth (NFCY) that asks youth workers to discuss the impact they have had on the lives of youth, Linda Mascarenas of Family and Youth Services in Stockton, CA, talks about a teen mother who became a paid employee of her youth program.