Placement and Permanency

Ensure placements are LGBTQ+ affirming.

• Placements should affirm and support children and youth as they define and express their identity, including those who identify as gender nonbinary or gender diverse.

• Caregivers should refrain from disparaging comments, differential treatment, and prohibiting access to LGBTQ+-specific support, resources, and information.

• For nonbinary and gender diverse youth, try to avoid sex-segregated placements. If they are unavoidable, defer to the youth regarding where they feel most safe and comfortable.

• If a placement is non-affirming, begin by speaking with the foster family or person who is in charge of the placement about your concerns. If needed take additional steps to address the situation in consultation with a youth’s advocate, caseworker, and other stakeholders. This will help to determine, if the placement may improve if the family or agency offers additional education and other supports, or if a placement move is necessary to ensure the youth’s safety and wellbeing.

The CPS Handbook has a section regarding addressing placement issues. See: Section 4000: Placing Children in DFPS Conservatorship.

Where possible, avoid congregate care for LGBTQ+ youth.

• Sex-segregated congregate care settings pose heightened physical and emotional safety risks for youth who are perceived to be gender non-conforming.

• Make efforts to promote family home placements.

• For youth in congregate care, proactively ask about their physical and emotional safety and address any issues. Conflict in congregate care settings around identity may increase risk of juvenile justice involvement or leaving placement, exposing youth to additional risk in the community, including exposure to commercial sexual exploitation.

Connect family, kin, and caregivers to information and support.

• Many parents and other caregivers will move to a place of acceptance if provided accurate information or services designed to help recognize that rejecting behaviors are harmful to children and youth. 

• Caregivers will also benefit from learning strategies on how to minimize the impact of actions that reject the child or youth’s identity.

• Focusing on specific services to allow LGBTQ+ children and youth to remain safely with family and kinship or in foster home settings, increases permanency, contributes to youth well-being, reduces reliance on congregate care, and reduces risk of homelessness and trafficking. 

Resources:  Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) Texas Chapters; Out Youth; Gender Infinity; Supportive Families, Healthy Children Helping Families with LGBT Children; Family Acceptance Project; Strong Family Alliance

Ensure immigrant LGBTQ+ foster youth obtain lawful permanent resident (LPR) status before they leave foster care.

• Immigrant foster youth who do not have LPR status are prohibited from driving, working, and they are at-risk of being detained and deported. Deportation to their country of origin may not be in the youth’s best interest and could put foster youth in imminent danger.

• Many immigrant foster youth are also at-risk of persecution or torture if returned to their country of origin, including persecution or torture due to their sexual orientation or gender identity.

• DFPS immigration specialists can assist foster youth to obtain special immigrant juvenile status (SIJS), but other pathways to immigration exist for foster youth, including but not limited to U-visas, T-visas, and asylum.

• Due to increased risk for homelessness, trafficking, and violence victimization, LGBTQ+ foster youth may be more likely than other immigrant foster youth to be eligible for U-visas, T-visas, and asylum.

• DFPS is limited in how they can assist with immigration cases outside SIJS applications, and immigrant LGBTQ+ foster youth without lawful permanent resident status must meet with experienced immigration attorneys to determine which immigration pathway is best for their case.

• Immigration proceedings can take years depending on the type of application; follow-up and urgency is critical to ensure foster youth obtain lawful permanent residency before they leave foster care. Connect youth to immigration attorneys and follow-up on each step in a youth’s immigration proceedings to ensure documentation is signed and passed onto the next step as quickly as possible.

Resources: DFPS Policy Handbook 6700 International and Immigration Issues; DFPS Policy Handbook International and Immigration Issues Resource Guide; Juvenile Law Center; Texas Foster Youth Justice Project; Williams Institute Report on LGBT Asylum