Rapid change in the cultural context for LGBTQ populations over the past 10-15 years has led to new challenges for LGBTQ youth and young adults. Poor mental and physical health continue to be prevalent among sexual/gender minority youth relative to heterosexual peers. The CODAPAR project "A New Agenda for the Psychology of LGBTQ Youth and Emerging Adults" brought together six divisions of APA (Divisions 7, 9, 27, 37, 43, and 44) to engage in a process of agenda-setting. The project will create a formal statement adopted by all six divisions, develop a website and a webinar to promote dissemination of the Statement of Priorities, support involvement and training of students in these efforts, and encourage collaboration across divisions and with other community and professional organizations.
To start the process, a Pre-Convention Workshop was held on Aug. 7, 2019, at the Chicago School of Professional Psychology. Eighty-seven people attended. We had 30 graduate students and 53 psychologists. We had four representatives from advocacy organizations that directly serve the needs of LGBTQ youth: representatives from the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) and the National Immigrant Justice Center. The event offered CE credit for licensed psychologists.
After the workshop, the following tentative areas or items for the New Agenda were identified through brainstorming groups, after hearing seven keynote speakers from the six divisions. The tentative agenda includes the following items (this is not exhaustive):
- Implement study designs of LGBTQ youth/young adult populations that include representative sampling.
- Encourage sexual orientation and gender identity questions in research designs focused on other domains of adolescent and emerging adulthood development.
- Implement research designs that incorporate questions about and measures of gender fluidity.
- Work to create research that is consumable/tangible to the communities and populations studied.
- Increase research on differential impacts of sexual prejudice on subgroups of gender/sexually diverse youth and emerging adults, taking into account intersecting identities.
- Study suicidality and victimization among gender/sexually diverse immigrant/refugee youth.
- Develop curriculum and resources for dissemination into clinical psychology programs, integration into current training.
- Implement programs to train practitioners to work with gender/sexually diverse adolescents and their families; work on APA policy to require this training or competencies at various phases of professional development.
- Work to incorporate training to work with gender/sexually diverse folks in predoctoral training, and in continuing education requirements for achieving and maintaining licensure.
- Work to expand the referents of the word “family” and address how institutions/systems address differing caregiving structures.
- Create professional development materials and events for the judicial system.
- Integrate interventions to support family acceptance of gender/sexually diverse children and youth into systems of care.
The project will continue, working with each of the six APA divisions to formally adopt the New Agenda, and provide trainings and resources to support the dissemination of items on the agenda. We have a collaborative programming symposium that will be presented during APA 2020 Virtual, describing the CODAPAR project and the current status. The symposium is entitled “A New Agenda for the Psychology of LGBTQ Youth and Emerging Adults.”
Find more information on how to submit a grant proposal and on past recipients at Interdivisional Grant Program.
