A Renewed Focus on Fathers
June 15, 2016
Seth Chamberlain, Adolescent Development Research Team Leader, Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation
There are many lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) individuals and families in the United States. Data from Gallup reports that almost 3.4% of adults in the U.S. identify as LGBT – some 9 million plus people. Among those under age 50 who are single or with a spouse or partner, about half (PDF) of LBT women and a fifth of GBT men are raising children.
This is a time of rapid social and legal change for the LGBT community, but most LGBT individuals and same-sex couples still face stressors that others don’t, stressors that may undermine their efforts to form strong, nurturing families.
- Same-sex couples are more likely to be in poverty than different-sex married couples
- Children being raised by same-sex couples experience higher rates of poverty than children being raised by different-sex married couples
- LGBT people often have poorer health outcomes than other people
Many of these are similar to stressors of other low-income populations. ACF’s mission is to support all vulnerable children and families to achieve health, wellbeing, and economic self-sufficiency.
Since 2005 ACF’s Healthy Marriage and Relationships Education (HMRE) program has assisted families or those who may eventually form families (like youth, who constitute about half (PDF) of HMRE participants) in developing the skills needed for healthy romantic relationships.
One project at ACF has been in the process of updating these programs to address the unique needs of individuals who are (or may eventually be) in same-sex relationships. The project is identifying practices that address the unique needs of LGBT populations, such as encouraging programs to adopt policies that welcome and affirm everyone, including sensitivity training for staff, and updating curricula to include examples of same-sex couples.
Once we identify a set of possible practices, we plan to vet these with experts. We want to be sure that they are feasible in current program contexts and appropriate for LGBT populations.
Through this project and other efforts, ACF aims to support all families as they strive to become healthy and strong.
Learn more about the human service needs of low-income and at-risk LGBT populations and stay updated on the project by signing up for the OPRE newsletter .
