• Providing foster parent training and MAPP trainings for potential foster parents


• Providing supplemental training for agency staff and foster parents


• Encouraging LGBT families to consider becoming foster parents


• Utilizing LGBT youth speakers for MAPP panels

Cultural Competency Benchmarks

Initially the Foster Care project assisted agencies to work toward achieving the following benchmarks which represent the minimum for core competency. Although the focus of the project has changed, we still maintain these benchmarks for the foundation of agencies achieving cultural competencies:

• Ensure that all youth, current and new staff and parents receive notice of the Administration for Children’s Services Nondiscrimination – Youth and families Policy, both written and verbal.


• Adopt a written policy outlining a grievance procedure for youth and staff to report discrimination, harassment or abuse by personnel, youth participants or contractors.


• Actively recruit potential foster and adoptive parents from the LGBT community in order to provide a broader pool of families and more permanency options for youth.


• Use scenarios that depict the experiences of LGBT youth and their foster parents when training potential foster or adoptive families.


• Require and ensure that all agency staff (to include certified homes) receive initial comprehensive LGBT cultural competency training and develop a mechanism for ongoing training.


• Identify a staff person to serve as the LGBT resource contact person within the agency, who stays up-to-date on LGBT community resources, and is accessible to youth, parents and staff for information and/or supervision.


• Provide training, mentoring and support for birth families that are seeking reunification and/or continuous contact with youth in care self-identified or perceived as LGBT.


• Inform and assist LGBT youth participants and families to access local LGBT support services and programs.


• Affirm and include the LGBT community on your agency web site and in its printed materials.


• Create an inclusive and safe physical environment for LGBT youth and families by displaying supportive images such as inclusive posters, pink triangles, rainbows or hate-free zones stickers.