Consortium of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered Voluntary and Community Organisations
Key Facts
Location
Croydon / Greenwich / Southwark / Hackney
Project Criteria
Contact
Mark Reedman
Email
Project funding
£167,265
Funding round
Young LGBT people explore their sexuality at an increasingly early age. In an ideal world, the parents of lesbian gay bisexual transgender young people (LGBT) are best placed to provide the positive environment for young people who are beginning to discover their sexuality. In reality, the parents of LGBT children have little real understanding of sexuality issues, are poorly personally equipped to support their children's 'coming out' and often find themselves the victims of homophobia and discrimination as 'parents of gay children'.
Parents in the sexuality equation are neglected. Membership consultation estimates 25 per borough per year across and 50 seen through specialist trans groups and schools. With the exception of PACE with its national brief, the support for parents of LGBT children has few formally organised and integrated support systems that work across the range of different places where young LGBT people and their parents are found. While an excellent national organisation FFLAG is physically limited in their ability to adequately resource the number of parents of LGBT young people across the United Kingdom outside of delivering information provision.
This project seeks to improve local service reach by coordinating a borough based peripatetic parent support system providing information, counselling and support/referral services to parents using an outreach approach across local schools and LGB and T youth groups. The project will improve parents understanding and ability to positively support their child's sexuality and development needs, connect parents to a range of broader social support and specialised counselling services and support young LGBT people in better relating to their parents.