Identity – lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender

Action for Children is committed to promoting, building and sustaining equality and inclusion for all lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender children, young people and families we support, as well as our staff and volunteers.

This page details our organisational approach and illustrates our work in projects via three case studies.

Our organisational approach

All projects are expected to take account of both the equality scheme and the equality and diversity policy. These set out the ways we expect teams to promote equality and diversity in their day-to-day work and planning.

There is a lot of good practice in projects relating to diversity, and this is supported by ongoing learning and development opportunities to raise awareness of issues concerning sexual orientation and gender identity.

For example, we have run two LGBT conferences in the last two years. In our latest one, we formed a partnership with an organisation called Gendered Intelligence, who ran a workshop for participants, but also undertook a performance piece written and produced by LGBT young people, called 'Brief Encounters'. The education pack that came with this drama project has been made available as a resource for all projects.

Case study - Halton Youth Service, Cheshire

Halton Youth Service's Operations Manager and Director for LGBT Youth North West, Sally Carr:

"At Halton Youth Service, we ensure that our workforce is trained to be able to support LGBT young people in both open and targeted youth provisions. We have a dedicated weekly LGBT youth group, where young people can access specific support and activities.

"We celebrate key events and activities in the LGBT year such as LGBT History Month in February, and were part of the Manchester Pride parade in August. We train LGBT young people to deliver workshops in youth provisions and schools, and at major events such as the Halton anti-bullying conference.

"As such, we are active members of the borough's LGBT planning group, and have set up our 11 youth clubs as third-party hate crime reporting centres, including training our staff to support young people to make reports, if necessary."

Case study - Mermaids joint creative project

Wendi Bestman, Diversity Manager at Action for Children:

"We developed a partnership with Mermaids to help provide a voice to children, young people and families living with gender identity and transgender issues. The first element of that partnership saw us produce 'Where do the mermaids stand?' an anthology of poetry, prose and artwork developed by children, young people and parents.

"The companion piece to this work will be a good practice guide, developed and produced alongside a number of children, young people and families and informed by the expertise of Mermaids and other key support groups and organisations."

Case study - Adoption services, Kent

Anne and Karen, a lesbian couple:

"Once we had decided to adopt we contacted Action for Children who welcomed us. There were many home visits, visits with friends and relatives, copious amounts of paperwork and a three-day training course, where we met other couples hoping to adopt. This whole experience was very positive and during the process we made friends with other prospective adopters. At no time were we ever made to feel different from anybody else.

"About two years on from our initial enquiry we went in front of a panel of professionals who were to make a decision on whether we would be able to adopt. We passed and were very excited as we began to look through adoption magazines and newspapers.

"As we both have experience as teachers, we were interested in adopting one or two boys with more challenging behaviour, especially those that were slightly older as these are often harder to place. We had very mixed experiences with social workers at this stage, some of which showed intolerance or negativity due to our gender or sexual orientation. Eventually, though, the social workers of two boys contacted Action for Children enquiring about us. They visited us and it was immediately apparent that they were seriously interested in us as prospective parents.

"The next step was to prepare the boys, which was done by their social workers, while we put together a book all about our family. Once all the preparation had been done, we spent two weeks getting to know them and at the end of the two weeks they came to live with us. This was the end of what, at times, had seemed like an impossible task, but the beginning of what has so far been an amazing journey for all of us.

"Throughout our experience the social workers and staff from Action for Children were hugely supportive and we will always be grateful to them. We would also like to encourage anyone seriously interested in becoming adoptive parents to persevere - it will at times seem like a long, drawn-out process but one that is so definitely worth it in the end."

Further help and support

If you need support or advice you can call Stonewall on 08000 502 020 or Childline on 0800 11 11.

Other useful websites:

Mermaids - Support and information for UK-based gender variant children and teens, their families and friends.
Queer Youth Network - National LGBT youth organisation in the UK.
LGBT Youth Scotland - Scotland's largest youth and community-based LGBT organisation.
LGBT Youth North West - Supporting LGBT young people and LGBT youth organisations in the North West of England.
Young Women's Peer Health Project - Working to improve young lesbian and bisexual women's health.
GRIN - An awareness campaign to promote equality and respect in education focusing particularly on the LGBTQ community in the US and the UK.