Understanding Gender Minorities in Child Welfare & Social Systems

Luke Pacha

Training Description

This training supports providers in understanding intersecting concerns for girls, young women, and transgender, gender nonconforming, and nonbinary youth who are system-involved. Participants will define gender minority as encompassing the gender identities above, and review four systemic barriers for gender minority youth in the child welfare system within our current sociohistorical context. Participants will also identify three differential outcomes and three overlapping concerns for gender minorities in the child welfare system. In small and large groups, we will explore four strategies for addressing systemic & individual barriers for gender minority youth, including reviewing how to advocate for gender minority youth and how to use community resources.

Learning Objectives

· Participant will be able to review and identify four systemic barriers for gender minority youth in the child welfare system.

· Participants will be able to identify three differential outcomes for gender minorities in the child welfare system.

· Participants will be able to identify three overlapping concerns for transgender, gender nonconforming, & nonbinary youth and young women within the social services & child welfare systems.

Agenda

9:30-9:50am  Introductions, community agreements, objectives.

9:50-11:30am  Define gender minority & explore this concept’s utility in social services & the child welfare system. Review four systemic barriers for gender minority youth in the child welfare system. Identify three differential outcomes for gender minorities in the child welfare system. Identify three overlapping concerns for transgender, gender nonconforming, & nonbinary youth and young women within the social services & child welfare systems. Explore four strategies for addressing systemic & individual barriers for gender minority youth.

11:30-11:45am  Break (CE hours will not be offered for this time)

11:45am-12:30pm  Small group work. Review laws and community resources. Wrap-up.

Meet Our Trainer

Luke Pacha is the owner of Infinite Diversity LLC. He holds a Master of Religion and Psychology, Master of Divinity, and Certificate of Sexuality and Religion from Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, CA. He also holds a Bachelor of Science in Human Development and Psychological Services from Northwestern University in Evanston, IL.

Infinite Diversity LLC was founded by Luke Pacha, MA, M.Div. in 2023, after 9 years of operating as Kelsey Pacha Consulting. Luke has over a decade of experience operating as a consultant, and 18 years of experience working with marginalized communities. Infinite Diversity supports the work of institutions and individuals in increasing their capacity for cultural humility and social justice-informed institutional change.

Infinite Diversity offers educational trainings and LGBTQ workplace policy expertise with an emphasis on practical skills, identity awareness, and personal empowerment. IDIC offers over 100 cultural humility trainings per year with corporate diversity, equity, and inclusion officers and LGBTQ affinity groups, as well as legal, clinical, medical, and direct service personnel. Infinite Diversity currently has contracts with several Bay Area schools or school districts focusing on supporting educators, LGBTQ students and their families.

Luke straddles the worlds of academia/theory and practice, serving as the Board President of Trans Bodies, Trans Selves, a national non-profit organization that publishes a 705-page resource guide of the same name, by and for the trans, gender expansive, and nonbinary communities. Through this work, he connects with leading transgender and gender expansive scholars in medicine, law, mental health, social sciences, politics, and culture to collaborate on editions of Trans Bodies. He recently authored the Religion and Spirituality chapter of the second edition of the book, released April 15, 2022, and served as Survey Editor, managing a nationwide qualitative survey of over 2,000 respondents quoted in the book, and editing several chapters. Luke co-authored an academic review of methodologies used to survey transgender & nonbinary people based on the Trans Bodies Second Edition Survey, “Surveying trans and nonbinary communities: Research methodologies, accountability, and ethics with the Trans Bodies, Trans Selves Survey (2nd edition),” published in Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity in 2022.

Luke also co-authored the Religion and Spirituality chapter in the surgical textbook Gender Confirmation Surgery: Principles and Techniques for an Emerging Field, edited by Loren Schecter, released 2020. He has been featured as a subject matter expert on gender pronouns in Rolling Stone, Grammarly’s Guide to Personal Pronouns,  and NPR Cap Radio about best pronoun practices in the workplace. He has also been interviewed on NPR’s The Takeaway and been published in LGBTQ Nation. More information can be found about Luke at infinitediversityllc.com.

This course meets the qualifications for (2.75) BBS CE hours for LCSWs, LMFTs, LPCCs, and LEPs as required by the California Board of Behavioral Sciences & is provided by Fred Finch Youth Center, CAMFT Provider #045295.