What You Need to Know About LGBTQ Foster and Adoption

Wayfinder Family Services Provides 5 Things You Can Do to Help Support LGBTQ Youth in Foster Care

LOS ANGELES, June 14, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- LGBTQ youth are overrepresented in the child welfare system: Roughly 30% of youth in foster care identify as LGBTQ, a rate nearly three times higher than those not in the foster care system. There are five times more transgender youth in foster care than in the general population. 

What Can You Do to Help?

Too often, LGBTQ youth age out of foster care without a family, feeling unloved and alone. 

Wayfinder Family Services is determined to prevent this from happening by finding affirming and nurturing foster or adoptive parents and connecting youth with a support system of extended family. Here's how you can get started:

• Contact an inclusive adoption or foster care agency like Wayfinder Family Services.
• Sign up for a free orientation, which will prepare you for the challenges and joys of fostering or adopting.
• Answer the call: if you aren't ready to foster or adopt, consider being part of a child's emotional support system and community. Family finding social workers try to connect youth in the foster care system with extended family. Answer their call if you are contacted and explore the ways you can support a child in foster care.
• Are you already an adoptive parent with an LGBTQ child? Make sure you have post-adoption support services which can help you navigate resources and support for your child.
• Learn more and become an ally:

Did you know?
LGBTQ youth in the child welfare system are more likely to:

• experience discrimination and violence.
• have been hospitalized for emotional reasons.
• have been homeless.
• be placed in group homes rather than with foster families.
• have a higher average number of foster care placements.
• hear staff and others refer to them as "hard to place."
• face barriers to finding a permanent home.
• stay longer in the child welfare system than non-LGBTQ peers.
• see their birth families less often.

"LGBTQ youth are currently facing tremendous challenges and like all children, they deserve loving families. I hope that inclusive, nurturing individuals will join us in supporting them," says Jay Allen, Wayfinder's incoming CEO and current president.

About Wayfinder Family Services
Formerly known as Junior Blind, Wayfinder Family Services is the place to turn for people facing the greatest challenges. The organization provides expert, individualized support and services to children, youth, adults and families—from people with vision loss and developmental disabilities to children in need of temporary shelter, foster care and adoption.

SOURCE Wayfinder Family Services