Voices of LGBTQ Youth: Experiences Navigating Social Institutions

• In Event: 2021 Education Research Service Project Invited Poster Session

Abstract

The Prism Youth Community, a youth-led organization of/for LGBTQ kids from south central Indiana, engages in cultural competency trainings for educators and other youth-serving professionals. The Education and Training Committee of Prism is responsible for preparing, planning and delivering a variety of educational trainings related to the needs and experiences of queer youth. The youth-educators draw on their own experiences and engage in their own reviews of the literature in order to create the trainings. There is current need for more trainings and materials relevant to the experiences and needs of youngsters marginalized within the LGBTQ community, for example, transgender kids in foster care. Prism’s E&T committee is interested in conducting interviews and focus groups with more vulnerable members of the larger LGBTQ community. This research would be used for purposes of creating authentic and valid materials that the youth educators can share through their educational trainings and potentially on the web. The E&T committee has already been working with IU scholars, Barbara and Suraj, to evaluate their trainings. The proposed project would draw on this relationship as it prepares youth to engage in direct research aimed at sharing the un-voiced experiences of marginalized youth with social workers, psychologists, teachers, and others involved with youth. Our proposed budget is $5,000 with much of that money allocated to pay Prism E&T members as Research Assistants. These assistants will become research leaders in the community. At last, the materials created will be shared for the first time at a community-wide education event hosted by Prism E&T.

Authors

• Barbara Dennis, Indiana University

• Suraj Uttamchandani, Indiana University - Bloomington