Watch This Webinar: Improving Services for LGBT Youth

Reclaiming Futures is committed to the equitable treatment of troubled youth—nurturing each of them on a path toward health and prosperity, rather than incarceration. To do this, we must be able to identify and end the patterns of discrimination and victimization at play in our schools and our juvenile justice systems.

For example, among incarcerated youth, we know that those with a sexual orientation other than heterosexual report sexual victimization at a rate that is seven times higher than that of their heterosexual peers. Consider these additional statistics:

• Approximately 40% of homeless youth are LGBT.
• More than 30% of LGBT students missed a day of school in the past month because of safety concerns.
• 20% of youth in detention facilities nationwide are lesbian, gay, bisexual, questioning, or gender nonconforming.
• 19% of youth in foster care identify as LGBTQ.

Angela Irvine, PhD, and Aisha Canfield, MPP from Impact Justice, shared these stats recently during an online workshop for Reclaiming Futures. Their full presentation, “Improving Behavioral Health Services for Lesbian, Gay Bisexual, and Gender Nonconforming (LGB/GNC) Youth in the Juvenile Justice System” is now available on our website.

The webinar provides a valuable overview of the many different intersecting identities held by young people in the juvenile justice system—including race, gender identity, sexual orientation and immigration status—and emphasizes how LGB/GNC young people, particularly those of color, are disproportionately driven into the justice system and what can be done to improve services to support them. There’s even a quiz to test your knowledge of the latest research on LGBT youth!

Click here and scroll down the page to access the recorded presentation, download a PDF of the presentation, or view a supplementary article by Dr. Irvine. You can also access other valuable presentations on a number of topics by searching our full webinar archive.