The National SOGIE Center is a collaborative led by Innovations Institute at the University of Connecticut School of Social Work and is comprised of multiple organizations that work to improve the lives of children and youth with diverse Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, and Expression (SOGIE) involved in systems of care.
The National SOGIE Center includes organizations across the country leading work focused on advocacy, policy, financing, system design, intervention design, implementation, evaluation, and providing direct care services for youth and their families within the public child, youth and family-serving systems. These systems include child welfare, juvenile justice, mental health (including school mental health), substance use systems, and housing and homelessness.
Historically, accessing resources on improving care for youth identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, population identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex, two-spirit, and other diverse sexual orientations, gender identities and expressions (LGBTQ+) has been siloed. This Center serves as a centralized site for accessing resources on providing culturally responsive care to children, youth, young adults with diverse SOGIE, and their families across these systems.
The work of the SOGIE Center is grounded by the following principals:
*Families include families of origin and families of choice.
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Best Point of Contact: Ashley Austin and Shelley Craig – mail@affirmativeresearch.net
Mission Statement: Using an integrated affirmative research and practice framework, ARC engages in innovative research and provides training and consultation aimed at improving the mental health and wellbeing of LGBTQ+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans*, queer, etc.) youth and young adults.
Website: https://www.affirmativeresearch.net/
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Best Point of Contact: Kristen Weber – kristen.weber@cssp.org
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Mission Statement: CSSP works to achieve a racially, economically, and socially just society in which all children and families thrive.
Website: https://cssp.org/
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Best Point of Contact: fap@sfsu.edu
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Description: The Family Acceptance Project® is a research, intervention, education and policy initiative to prevent health and mental health risks for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer-identified (LGBTQ) children and youth, including suicide, homelessness, drug use and HIV — in the context of their families, cultures and faith communities. We use a research-based, culturally grounded approach to help ethnically, racially and religiously diverse families learn to support their LGBTQ children.
Website: https://familyproject.sfsu.edu/; https://lgbtqfamilyacceptance.org/
Initiatives, Training, Resources:
Family education booklets: https://familyproject.sfsu.edu/publications
Healthy Futures poster series: https://familyproject.sfsu.edu/poster
Best Point of Contact: Vida Khavar – vkhavar@familybuilders.org
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Mission Statement: Family Builders believes that every child has the right to grow up in permanent nurturing loving family. Family Builders educates the community about the needs of children in foster care, advocates on their behalf and creates permanent secure families through adoption and other forms of permanency.
Website: https://familybuilders.org/
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Mission Statement: Our mission is to ensure that everyone has the freedom to find, form, and sustain their families by advancing equality for the LGBTQ+ community.
Website: https://www.familyequality.org
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Best Point of Contact: Alison Delpercio – alison.delpercio@hrc.org
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Mission Statement: The Human Rights Campaign Foundation improves the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) people by working to increase understanding and encourage the adoption of LGBTQ+ inclusive policies and practices.
Website: https://www.thehrcfoundation.org/
Initiatives, Training, Resources:
Best Point of Contact: Sheila Pires – sapires@aol.com, Kathy Lazear – klazear@usf.edu
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Mission Statement: Human Service Collaborative assists national, state, and local governments, communities and neighborhood collaboratives, and federal and foundation funders to develop policies and programs to achieve:
Best Point of Contact: Christopher Bellonci – cbellonci@bakercenter.org
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Mission Statement: The Baker Center for Children and Families (also known as Judge Baker Children’s Center), promotes the best possible mental health of children and families through the integration of research, intervention, training, and policy.
Website: https://www.bakercenter.org
Best Point of Contact: Currey Cook – ccook@lambdalegal.org; Maia Zelkind – mzelkind@lambdalegal.org
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Mission Statement: Lambda Legal is a national organization committed to achieving full recognition of the civil rights of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender people and everyone living with HIV through impact litigation, education and public policy work.
Website: https://www.lambdalegal.org/
Best Point of Contact: Danny King – DKing@nclrights.org
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Mission Statement: NCLR is a national legal organization committed to advancing the civil and human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people and their families through litigation, legislation, policy, and public education. NCLR’s work on behalf of LGBTQ youth includes promoting the well-being of youth in foster care and youth justice systems, protecting youth from the harms of conversion therapy, promoting safety and equality in schools, and ensuring that transgender youth have the supports they need to thrive.
Website: https://www.nclrights.org
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Best Point of Contact: training@ruthelliscenter.org
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Mission Statement: It is our mission, to create opportunities with LGBTQ+ young people to build their vision for a positive future.
Website: https://www.ruthelliscenter.org/
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Best Point of Contact:
Lydia Proulx – lydia@youthmovenational.org
Areas of Expertise:
Youth engagement in systems change
Youth peer support implementation support
Youth peer and youth peer supervision training
LGBTQ+ youth lived experience in mental health, child welfare, juvenile justice
Mission Statement: We the members of Youth MOVE National will work as a diverse collective to unite the voices and causes of youth while raising awareness around youth issues. We will advocate for youth rights and voice in mental health and the other systems that serve them, for the purpose of empowering youth to be equal partners in the process of change.
Website: https://youthmovenational.org/
Initiatives, Training, Resources:
Youth MOVE Change Initiative: https://youthmovenational.org/youth-move-change-initiative
Youth Peer Support Resources: https://youthmovenational.org/youth-peer-support/