The Children Youth and Families (CYF) Committee aims to raise awareness of psychosocial issues facing sexual and gender minority children, youth, and their families. The CYF Committee focuses on improving sexual and gender minority youths’ overall health and wellbeing, particularly among those with multiple marginalized identities, through academic research, clinical work, and community engagement.
The CYF Committee is engaged in several activities to date. For example, the CYF Committee recently submitted a symposium presentation to be considered for the 2021 Annual American Psychological Association Convention on sexual and gender minority youths’ victimization experiences. The CYF Committee is also currently collaborating with other committees (e.g., the Public Policy Committee) to increase the visibility of sexual and gender minority youth-related issues. Finally, the committee is engaged in creating fact sheets to be posted on several social media and informational websites, including the Public Policy Committee website. Current factsheet topics include foster care (e.g., sexual and gender minority youth in the foster care system, sexual and gender minority individuals looking to become foster parents) and sexual and gender minority youths’ adverse childhood experiences, strengths, and resiliencies.
Anyone with a clinical or scholarly interest in issues related to sexual and gender minority youth, development, and family systems is welcome.
The co-chairs for the CYF Committee are Joshua Goodman, PhD, assistant professor in the department of psychology at Rhodes College, and Jillian Scheer, PhD, assistant professor in the department of psychology at Syracuse University.