Best Practices
A Providers Introduction to Substance Abuse Treatment for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Individuals
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)Report generated by a consortium of clinicians, researchers, program and administrative managers, policymakers, and practitioners brought together to review and discuss best-practice strategies for treating gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people with substance abuse issues.
Guidelines for Care of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Patients
Studies show that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender populations, in addition to having the same basic health needs as the general population, experience health disparities and barriers related to sexual orientation and/or gender identity or expression. Many avoid or delay care or receive inappropriate or inferior care because of perceived or real homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, and discrimination by health care providers and institutions. There are some simple ways to make your practice environment more welcoming and safe for your LGBT patients. Here are a few ideas to update your physical environment, add or change intake and health history form questions, improve provider-patient discussions, and increase staff’s knowledge about and sensitivity to your LGBT patients.
Cultural competency: Its impact on addiction, treatment and recovery
Developed by The Institute for Research, Education, and Training in Addictions (IRETA), this manual gives a general overview for practitioners on cultural competency, community healing, and communicating with specific populations such as LGBTQ, Native American, and Latino communities with an emphasis on the effects of historical trauma on these specific communities.
How to Gather Data on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in Clinical Settings
One of the first steps to providing culturally competent care is amending all patient-history and intake forms to assure that they are LGBT-inclusive. In this brief, we discuss two methods for gathering sexual orientation and gender identity from patients, by asking questions on the patient registration (intake) form, and by requiring that providers gather this information directly from patients during medical visits, recording responses in the electronic medical record.
LGBTQ Cultural Competence Assessment
Published by the National Center for Cultural Competence at Georgetown University, this tool helps providers who work with LGBTQ youth and their families assess the degree to which they are providing culturally competent services.
Serving Elder LBGT Adults
Inclusive Questions for Older Adults: A Practical Guide to Collecting Data on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity
This guide helps to answers the question: “How can our mainstream aging organization ask questions about sexual orientation and gender identity in safe and respectful ways to better inform our services and programs?” Written with suggestions, tips and practical ideas this guide will assist in your organization’s path to asking fully inclusive questions to all of your clients.
Health and Psychosocial Needs of LGBT Older Adults
This research study provides one of the most comprehensive descriptions of the health, well-being and social context of LGBT older adults. These data should be used to facilitate policy-making and program decisions to address the current and future needs of these individuals.
The Aging and Health Report: Disparities and Resilience among Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Older Adults, November 2011
This publication is the first national federally-funded project to examine LGBT aging and health. It documents significant health disparities impacting LGBT older adults as they age, including disability, physical and mental distress, victimization, discrimination, and lack of access to supportive aging and health services.
Health Equity & LGBT Elders of Color
This brief explores 10 policy areas where health and wellness can be improved for LGBT older people of color (a population that encompasses multiple groups diverse across race, ethnicity, culture, language of origin and more), examining policy topics such as federal funding gaps, the ways in which health reform implementation can reach marginalized people, LGBT-specific barriers within programs such as Social Security, and much more.
Identities (in)formation
Intentional Families: Fictive Kin Ties Between Cross-Gender, Different Sexual Orientation Friends
This study explores the nature of intentional family relationships between friends of different genders and different sexual orientations. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 46 members of 23 friendship dyads, I first make the case that the friends considered one another family and I specify the criteria they use for making such designations. I then focus on the ways in which gender and sexual orientation influenced relationships between lesbians and straight men and between gay men and straight women. The data provided evidence that the dyad members identified one another as family and served the functions of family for each other. The findings also suggest that various gender issues affect cross-gender, different sexual orientation relationships. Exploring the meaning and functioning of these intentional family ties documents their existence and illuminates their meaning and maintenance.
This study focuses on hazardous drinking, among other variables, on risky sexual behavior among lesbian and bisexual women, and suggests that sexual risk reduction in this group of women will need to address the influences of alcohol-use.
Violence, Cultural Display and the Suspension of Sexual Prejudice
Prejudice and violence directed against gay men, lesbians and other sexual groups have been viewed as ubiquitous and relatively fixed phenomena in contemporary societies. This perspective must be reconciled with the increased depiction of marginal sexualities and commercial ‘queering’ of mainstream media and popular culture. This paper presents and discusses data from two sources. Firstly, interviews conducted with self-identifying heterosexuals at the annual Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras (SGLMG) parade suggest attendance and participation can occur through a widely enjoyed public display and the temporary suspension of sexual prejudice in such specific carnivalesque occasions. Secondly, gay and lesbian responses to an internet-based questionnaire concerning perceptions and experiences of safety and hostility at this and similar other public events, suggest an undercurrent of threat and incivility, especially in the post-event context. These data sources are not directly compared but analysed in a complementary way to throw new light on how different groups view and experience this event. Our findings reflect how sexual prejudice is a shifting and contradictory collective social practice.
Serving LGBT Youth
Youth Empowerment and High School Gay-Straight Alliances
In the field of positive youth development programs, “empowerment” is used interchangeably with youth activism, leadership, civic participation and self-efficacy. This article explores how youth define and experience empowerment in youth-led organizations characterized by social justice goals: high school Gay-Straight Alliances (GSAs). Through focus group interviews, youth describe three inter-related dimensions of empowerment: personal empowerment, relational empowerment, and strategic empowerment through having and using knowledge. When these three dimensions are experienced in combination, GSA leaders have the potential for individual and collective empowerment as agents of social change at school. By understanding these youth’s perspectives on the meanings of empowerment, this article clarifies the conceptual arena for future studies of socially marginalized youth and of positive youth development.
Mental Health and Substance Use Disparities Among Urban Adolescent Lesbian and Bisexual Girls
This study examines substance use and mental health disparities among sexual minority girls to determine whether disparities were larger for African American compared with European American girls.
