BAYC Hosts Sold-Out Symposium on the Needs of LGBTQ Foster Youth

Bay Area Youth Centers (BAYC) hosted a successful symposium on Wednesday, September 16, 2009 at Preservation Park in Oakland. Titled “The Needs and Experiences of LGBTQ Youth in Out-of-Home Care,” this day-long event featured a keynote presentation by a former foster youth who began his transition to a male while still in care. The remainder of the day was marked by a balance of informal dialogue and formal presentations, including panels addressing topics such as the physical and emotional health of transgender youth; risk factors, safety and community; and fluidity of identity and gender expression.

The response to the symposium was overwhelmingly positive: registration reached maximum capacity of 110, far exceeding BAYC's initial expectations. Participants came from across the San Francisco Bay Area and included staffers from the University of California, private foundations, the Alameda and Santa Clara County Departments of Education, Human Services and Behavioral Health, faith-based organizations, and community-based nonprofit organizations serving foster youth.

Excerpts from Symposium Evaluations

This is one of the best presentations I’ve been to in a long time. I loved the format, diversity of panelists and topics covered. Great work! I have nothing but praise for all of the panelists and organizers.

I will go back to the UC Office of the President and make sure that UC campuses and services are culturally competent and fully accessible to LGBTQ and foster youth.

I loved that it was a day full of dialogue and conversation vs. being taught and lectured to. I loved that the conversations addressed every level of care from direct service to policy issues.

This symposium served as a reminder about the continued work I need to do in order to be better educated about working with LGBTQ youth—the resources and discussion offered today will be helpful to me when working with youth.

I appreciated the good quality legal and medical presentations balanced with lay activists and Child Welfare professionals. I appreciate how well organized the symposium was and the high quality of presentations.

There’s been great dialogue & points brought up that I’ll take back to my community, and that will lead to more action. Also, I will definitely contact others that I’ve met to help within the community.

A key outcome for the day was to share lessons learned and build a stronger network of service providers in the San Francisco Bay Area who are competent to serve this specialized population of foster youth. We certainly felt that this day marked the beginning of an important, ongoing dialogue, and BAYC looks forward to spearheading the establishment of a work group that will continue to address the issues brought forth that day. BAYC will also begin evaluating the system gaps identified during symposium discussions, and evaluating its capacity to fill these unmet needs.

BAYC is grateful to the Tides Foundation for providing the funding to enable us to host this symposium. It was a rich, rewarding day for all and we feel inspired, as do many of our colleagues in the field, to move forward with energy and enthusiasm.

For more information about the symposium or BAYC, contact Josh Leonard, Executive Director at (510) 727-9401 or josh@bayareayouthcenters.org.