Q&A
Cultural competency training for foster parents on LGBTQ+ issues
0:29:19
·
170 sec
Council Member Stevens inquires about the cultural competency training provided to foster parents to ensure they can provide affirming homes for LGBTQ+ youth. Commissioner Dannhauser and Steven Gordon explain the training process.
- Foster parents receive foundational training repeated twice a year
- Training is typically delivered by foster agencies, with input from Planned Parenthood
- Every foster parent must agree to be affirming and undergo training every two years
- Training includes how to talk to foster children about sexual orientation and gender identity
- Foster parents sign an 'affirming home pledge'
Althea V. Stevens
0:29:19
What's the cultural competency training do foster care grounds receive to ensure that they're providing any affirming homes for LGBT youth?
0:29:26
Is there a training part of a broader cost of foster care?
0:29:29
Parenting, or is there a standard a standalone course focused on best practices for caring for LGBT youth, foster care?
0:29:37
Also, please be specific whether the training is delivered online in person, and is it repeated annually.
Jess Dannhauser
0:29:44
So every foster parent is trained in our foundational training
Althea V. Stevens
0:29:50
Mhmm.
0:29:50
And
Jess Dannhauser
0:29:50
it's repeated twice a year.
0:29:52
The foster agencies are typically delivering that training.
0:29:57
We work with plan parenthood.
0:29:59
To update that training and help us to to create the best possible contemporary training for this.
0:30:06
I'm gonna ask Steven to talk a little bit about what we did with Planned Parenthood.
0:30:10
But every single foster parent has to agree that they're affirming.
0:30:14
It doesn't mean that that is something we just assume.
0:30:17
We un on ongoing reassess that and go through the training, and then they do it every 2 years, all staff as well.
Althea V. Stevens
0:30:24
And okay.
Jess Dannhauser
0:30:25
I'm just do Oh, yeah.
Althea V. Stevens
0:30:27
I would like to acknowledge I'm counsel my amendment who's also trained less.
Steven Gordon
0:30:31
Thank you, commissioner.
0:30:32
Also, I wanna point out that.
0:30:34
So upon
Althea V. Stevens
0:30:35
get your up.
0:30:35
You don't have to school, Joe, basically.
Pedro Gonzalez
0:30:37
Thank you.
Althea V. Stevens
0:30:37
We will fight today, so we family.
Steven Gordon
0:30:40
Appreciate that.
0:30:41
Thank you.
0:30:42
So Upon orientation, every single foster parents to take this LGBTQA plus foster parent training.
0:30:49
The staff that provide this training, when they're certified to do that, they're also trained to look for red flags for foster parents that might be unaffirming, that might they may or they may be seeing trends of homophobia or transphobia so that they can then alert the foster care agency's leadership to say maybe this foster parent isn't right.
0:31:07
Maybe this foster parent should not be certified.
0:31:10
In that training, the foster parents learned how to talk to their foster children no matter what the age about their sexual orientation, gender identity.
0:31:18
They learned to talk about body parts, to talk about gender pronouns, to engage young people about their interest in a gender neutral way.
0:31:29
After after that initial training is done, every foster parent also signs what we call an affirming home pledge, which just states that I will accept my LGBTQA plus foster child for who they are.
0:31:43
Foster children in or foster homes are made aware that if their issues, they can seek out their case planner and they can also seek out the office of equity strategies as of as a mechanism of support.
0:31:56
If they report that they
Althea V. Stevens
0:31:57
are How how do what's the expectation around them reaching out?
0:32:00
What does that look like?
0:32:01
Because when if they're in a home, we're in the fossil current, it's autom to, like, reach out.
0:32:05
What does that look like?
0:32:06
Could you just just be a little bit more specific about, like, how would they reach out?
