|
The Center for Community Service and
Family Development has developed an array of services for
Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender and Questioning youth under its
SunServe Counseling and Psychotherapy Services program. The Youth and
Family Services component is multi-faceted. It offers a Youth
Development Program which consists of a drop-in center, a rap group and
various skills and expressive activities groups.
It is the goal of the Youth Development
Program that its participants, equipped with solid information about
sexual orientation and gender identity, function with ever increasing
assuredness in the kinds of familial and/or intimate relationships and
social settings that are appropriate to their age cohort, no matter how
they identify their sexual orientation or gender identity.
The Youth Development Program does not
presume that youth entering, or participating in the program have fully
explored their sexual orientation or gender identity. Furthermore, the
program is not vested in the outcome of that exploration (i.e. whether
they come to learn that they are GLBT or straight.) Rather, the Youth
Development Program is committed to providing a safe setting in which
adolescents, allied with their peers, are affirmed in their self
exploration and self acceptance.
The
Youth Development Program targets youth who are homeless, at risk for
becoming homeless or in foster care at least in part because of their
questions or assertions about their sexual orientation or gender
identity which have generated or exacerbated some kind of crisis or
instability in their families.
The Youth and
Family Services program also offers
traditional mental health counseling for youth and families. There
are support groups for parents as well as training for parents who want
to become foster parents to LGBT youth.
 |