BY SANDERS KENNEDY
Concerned that LGBTQ+ foster youth are at a higher risk for mistreatment in the foster care system, City Councilmembers heard testimony on September 24 regarding the effectiveness of current policies and practices of the Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) to protect foster children.
“They’re overtly discriminated against through misnaming and misgendering, not being able to express their gender the way that is natural to who they are,” charged Erin Beth Harrist, Director of the Legal Aid Society’s LGBTIQ+ Unit, who testified at the committee hearing. “What does it say about the system, that they [fostered teens] feel safer being homeless or being marginally housed than they do in their placements.”
The Council’s Women’s and Gender Equity Committee and its Children and Youth Committee held the joint hearing at City Hall, introducing several pieces of legislation that would amend the administrative codes covering the reporting of mistreatment of queer foster teens.
The hearing was prompted by an “alarming” conversation between City Council member Althea Stevens, who chairs the Women’s and Gender Equity Committee, and a young girl in foster care during last year’s Foster Care Shadow Day, which Stevens hosted.
“She came in with a list of legislation and was very adamant about her treatment in foster care,” said Stevens. “That was alarming to me. A lot of the mistreatment was because she identified as LGBTQIA youth. So that sparked my interest in the sense of, well, what is really happening in these homes.”
ACS Commissioner Jess Dannhauser defended the agency in his testimony, saying, “ACS is committed to providing high quality services and improving outcomes for LGBTQAI+ youth in foster care.” He noted, “We have been taking important steps to continuously strengthen our efforts to do this.”
Dannhauser said that ACS provided pamphlets with information detailing the rights that teens in foster care have, along with contact information of places to turn to.
“We are constantly trying to reinforce the message that there are [resources] available, that we are available, that we are listening,” said Dannhauser. “Young people are our best recruiters of other young people, to get them to the table to understand that there are supports here.”
Stevens inquired about specific details on the training foster parents receive to ensure that they’re providing affirming homes for LGBTQ+ youth.
“Every foster parent is trained in our foundational training, and it’s repeated twice a year. The foster care agencies are typically delivering that training,” said Dannhauser, who added that they also work with Planned Parenthood to update training practices.
Steven Gordon, Director of LGBTQAI Equity Strategies with ACS, provided details of the training process. “In that training the parents learn how to talk to their foster children no matter what the age about their sexual orientation, gender identity. They learn to talk about body parts, to talk about gender pronouns, to engage young people about their interests in a gender-neutral way,” said Gordon.
Dannhauser followed up by listing resources that teens have to report about any issue they’re facing. “There are a lot of folks who are checking in with young people to see how they’re feeling about their current placement,” he said, “just to make sure that if all those fail there’s another backup plan.”
In 2018, ACS and foster care provider agencies, including Youth in Progress and Planned Parenthood, conducted a “Foster Care Youth Experience Survey Report” in accordance with a law that passed in 2016. That legislation required ACS to provide youth in foster care, aged 13 and older, an annual survey regarding their experiences in foster care. The purpose of the survey is to better understand the experiences of youth while in foster care, according to ACS.
This year’s survey showed that 60 percent of eligible youth completed the survey, which ACS described as an “excellent response rate.” The past annual surveys only received a 30 – to 40- percent response rate, according to Youth Experience Survey data analysis.