Overview of the Youth Acceptance Project

Family Builders has developed the Youth Acceptance Project, now available in five States.

Director Jill Jacobs speaks about this important training in her interview with Sharon Roszia available here. The Youth Acceptance Project (YAP) was developed as an intervention for working with the families of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBTQ+) and gender expansive children and youth in foster care. The Intervention serves as a family preservation and family reunification tool, assisting families who are struggling with the sexual orientation and/or gender Identity or Expression of their child. YAP clinicians use a trauma-informed, psycho-educational model seeped in cultural humility to address the misinformation, resistance, fear, and grief that families often struggle with. The intervention is based on research that documents the impact and harm that families may create when they are not accepting of their child. The YAP outcome is that families become accepting and affirming of their LGBTQ+ and gender expansive children. Intervention reduces the time that children spend in foster care, reunites children with their families, and in many cases, prevents separation in the first place. A link to the program pdf is here. A Council on Accreditation description is here.