ANDRUS:
One Blog.
Many Voices.

Learning Session: LGBTQ Youth Impacted by the Juvenile Justice and Foster Care Systems

By Andrus Family Fund on November 15, 2018

AFF’s learning sessions are an opportunity to highlight the work of our grantees and other leaders in the field, as well as a chance to help convene funders and practitioners to continue learning. Through these sessions, we seek to create a learning community that can help advance effective practices in service of all young people.

AFF grantee/funder partners and colleagues will take a closer look at the unique obstacles LGBTQ face in the juvenile justice and foster care systems. Youth and their adult allies share organizing and advocacy efforts led by and for queer trans youth in Alabama, New Orleans and nationally.

Panelists discuss the barriers to health, housing, education, and re-entry services they face as immigrant, low-income, queer and trans youth, and highlight federal policies and litigation trends that will promote equitable social services and protections from harm. Speakers provide recommendations for how local, state, and federal partners can better support youth through programmatic and federal policies, and how funders can fill the gaps aimed at better supporting these communities.

Speakers include:

  • Kris Hayashi, the Executive Director at the Transgender Law Center.
    • TLC is the largest national trans-led organization advocating self-determination for all people.
  • Daroneshia Duncan-Boyd, the founder of TAKE (Transgender Advocates Knowledgeable Empower) a resource center in Birmingham, Alabama.
    • TAKE works to support trans women of color identify and overcome barriers they face. Daroneshia is joined by a young person at TAKE. Lyle Matthew, the Director of Research and Communications at Funders for LGBTQ Issues. Lyle leads the organization’s analysis of trends, gaps and opportunities related to LGBTQ funding.
  • Alexandra Citrin, the Senior Policy Analyst at the Center for the Study of Social Policy.
    • Citrin helps advance CSSP’s child welfare system change efforts through providing direct technical assistance through National Quality Improvement Centers funded through the Administration for Children and Families and child welfare systems operating under federal consent decree.