Gay and Lbian Foster Care and Adoptn - The North Amerin Council on Adoptable Children

Contents:

• HOW YOU CAN BEE GAY FOSTER PARENTS OR ADOPTIVE PARENTS
• HOE CALL: KEV GERS EXPLAS HIS EXPERIENCE FOSTERG-TO-ADOPT AS A GAY MAN
• GAY AND LBIAN FOSTER CARE AND ADOPTN
• GAY PARENTS TO BE
• GAY FOSTER CARE
• MAJOR EVANGELIL ADOPTN AGENCY WILL NOW SERVE GAY PARENTS NATNWI
• WHY GAY DADS ARE ESSENTIAL TO THE FOSTER CARE SYSTEM

HOW YOU CAN BEE GAY FOSTER PARENTS OR ADOPTIVE PARENTS

for Foster ParentsThis factsheet was wrten for foster parents to help them learn about LGBTQ (lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr, and qutng) youth the child welfare system, the unique risks they face, and the important role that foster parents n play rcg those risks. Child welfare agenci like AdoptUSKids provi special trag and rourc to make sure that all LGBT fai workg through their agenci feel wele and prepared for the gay foster re and adoptn procs.

When you choose to adopt gay youth or foster gay youth, you n provi them a posive role mol of an LGBT dividual, which they may have never had growg up. Clearly, when you ci to bee a gay foster parent or adoptive parent, you will make a huge difference the life of the child that you wele to your home. Now Gers, 35, who is also a real tate agent Los Angel, California, is hopg to spire other sgle gay men wh hop of fosterg to adopt their own children.

It is difficult to obta an accurate unt of same-sex parent fai bee many lbians and gay men are not open about their sexual orientatn due to fears of discrimatn, such as loss of employment, loss of child ctody, and antigay vlence.

HOE CALL: KEV GERS EXPLAS HIS EXPERIENCE FOSTERG-TO-ADOPT AS A GAY MAN

In fact, one prehensive study of children raised by lbian mothers or gay fathers nclud that children raised by same-sex parents did not differ om other children terms of emotnal functng, sexual orientatn, stigmatizatn, genr role behavr, behavral adjtment, genr inty, learng and gra pot averag.

GAY AND LBIAN FOSTER CARE AND ADOPTN

Another study reported that children gay and lbian hoeholds are more likely to talk about emotnally difficult topics, and they are often more rilient, passnate and tolerant. One of the biggt challeng facg same-sex parented fai is that they mt live a culture that supports heterosexist and homophobic attus and beliefs, which n affect the fai a variety of ways.

Today, there are many therapists available who specialize gay and lbian issu and provi a safe, nonjudgmental and unrstandg environment for the fay. Frequently, gay and lbian parented fai will seek theraptic help for guidance, support, and regnn that they may not be receivg om the broar social arena.

GAY PARENTS TO BE

Relatnships and problems wh non-blogil parent figur are mon among lbian and gay parented fai simply due to the blogil plexi volved wh nceivg children when parents are the same sex. Though many fay relatnships may be plex, explag fay relatnships is uniquely plex for lbian and gay parented fai bee of the lack of societal norms and relevant exampl media, stereotyped notns about such relatnships that are mon, and the fear of discrimatn faced by the fai.

Competent parentg may be fluenced by gay and lbian parents’ abily to accept and acknowledge their inty and how they are able to negotiate livg a heterosexist, homophobic, or otherwise discrimatory society, while rearg their children a fay un that is not socially sanctned. Therapists acknowledge the prevalence both of homophobia that is experienced by the fay as a rult of the actns of others, as well as the existence of ternalized homophobia and how this may impact fai.

GAY FOSTER CARE

Internalized homophobia is fed as a set of negative attus and affects toward homosexualy other persons and toward homosexual featur onelf. Both ternalized homophobia and experienc of outsi discrimatn may mean that fai need more time therapy to build rapport wh the therapist and to feel fortable disclosg personal and fay-related ncerns. While Gay Parents To Be do not work directly wh adoptn agenci, we offer prehensive rmatn about the procs and remendatns for those explorg .

GaysWhKids Amy is the world's only app created specifilly to help te gay and queer men about their fay-buildg Amy also offers an array of tnal rourc, assistance wh mentor matchg (troducg hopeful fathers wh experienced dads who have traveled the same path) and nnectg parents-to-be wh vetted fay-buildg partners to gui their adoptn, foster to adopt, surrogacy and IVF Amy enrolle are also eligible for disunts om their exclive work of surrogacy and IVF fay-buildg partners! In the fall of 1973, New York began placg queer children wh queer parents wh the aid of the Natnal Gay Task Force, a new gay-rights anizatn based Manhattan. The group’s head of muny servic, who had begun receivg panicked lls om agenci reprentg gay naways, started ördatg wh foster-re agenci Delaware and Connecticut.

A ltle more than a year later, a twenty-six-year-old gay social worker named Michael Weltmann took up the e on behalf of a lbian uple who were seekg to serve as foster parents for a gay boy who had n away om home.

MAJOR EVANGELIL ADOPTN AGENCY WILL NOW SERVE GAY PARENTS NATNWI

In the followg years, Weltmann registered two other queer foster parents: a man who had beiend a gay teen-ager while workg at a psychiatric hospal and a woman who had raised other foster kids for the partment before g out as lbian.

Parts of emerged a handful of newspapers; “Radil Relatns, ” a history of the queer fay by the scholar Daniel Wunwe Rivers, published 2013, briefly not the existence of “tac programs” to match gay youth wh gay upl Illois and New Jersey. Social workers were wrtlg wh the sheer number of kids the foster system; gay and trans kids, who were often rejected by prospective foster parents, were pecially difficult to place.

WHY GAY DADS ARE ESSENTIAL TO THE FOSTER CARE SYSTEM

When one uple clared their support for banng gay foster parents, sistg that there was “no place the foster re program for lbians and homos” or “their sordid and sful way of life, ” they were met wh tlls and boos. Up to that pot, the rejectn of gay foster parents was an implic policy—there were no formal l—bee was simply assumed that queer people uld not be f parents. In a 1974 paper, Michael Shernoff, a gay psychotherapist, attributed the vant policy around gay foster parents to a lack of years later, June, 1979, the New York Tim reported on an openly gay mister named John Kuiper, om Catskill, New York, who had adopted a thirteen-year-old boy.

”That fall, a graduate stunt was fishg her social-work field placement Weltmann’s office when an assistant supervisor nfid her about ocsnally licensg gay and lbian foster parents. Sce the early seventi, a loose work of New Jersey social workers had arranged for olr gay and trans foster kids—ually aged thirteen to eighteen—to be placed gay foster hom.