The Massachusetts Commission on LGBTQ Youth released a disturbing report on the state’s child welfare agency’s ability to protect LGBTQ children and young adults in their system from violence and abuse.
“The resulting harm is profound and sometimes irreversible,” the report states. “It falls particularly heavily on Black and Brown youth and transgender youth, who encounter disparate access to resources and persistent biases throughout the child welfare system.”
The report summarized three “alarming” findings:
- Failures to keep LGBTQ foster youth safe and to protect them from violence, abuse and risks associated with intimate partner violence and exploitation, particularly for youth in congregate care.
- Significant threats to well-being for LGBTQ foster youth, including long delays in accessing medically necessary care, barriers to education and invalidation of LGBTQ identities.
- Poor permanency outcomes for LGBTQ youth, linked to inappropriate placements, frequent moves and challenging transitions to adulthood.
“We live in fear knowing that every single day youth, LGBTQ youth are harmed within our custody because the [the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families (DCF)] hasn’t even begun to make visible this crisis since their data collection is so insufficient,” Sasha Goodfriend, chair of the commission that released the report, told the Boston Globe.
“With the data we do have around bullying and suicide rates among LGBTQ youth, we know that investing in this work is about saving lives,” said Goodfriend.
Reports the Globe:
[Goodfriend] said the report was conducted after years of complaints from LGBTQ youth in the DCF system and national statistics showing that 45 percent of transgender and nonbinary youth in child welfare systems have attempted suicide.
The report said DCF began collecting data on sexual orientation and gender identity among youth in the welfare system in 2016, but questions about gender identity are optional and not regularly asked by department staff, which makes the data unreliable. That makes it difficult for DCF and its community partners to evaluate policies and practices, Goodfriend said. …
A DCF spokeswoman said the agency is working collaboratively with the Office of the Child Advocate and the Legislature to improve the department’s data on sexual orientation and gender identity.
Having the data, however, is just a first step. “The report recommends that DCF implement LGBTQ nondiscriminatory policies and update staff trainings,” says the Globe. “Child welfare agencies in at least 11 other states, including Maine and California, have policies specifically designed to protect LGBTQ children, Goodfriend said
“This should not be the department versus anybody,” Goodfriend stressed. “We want [the DCF] to succeed, because when they succeed, our children succeed.”
Read the complete Boston Globe story here.
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