WORKING WITH PARENTS AND FAMILIES OF LGBTIQ+ CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE

Parents and families have a huge impact on the wellbeing, mental heath, self-esteem, confidence and life opportunities of their children. If parents feel and demonstrate love, pride and celebration of their LGBTIQ+ children, rather than fear, shame or hatred, the lives of those children are much better in the present and long-term.

An important strategy of We Are The Rainbow is to engage, support and educate parents and families, improving their understanding of sexual orientation, gender identity and sex characteristics, and the needs of their children. A key indicator for the long-term health, wellbeing and life outcomes of young people is the quality of their relationship with their parents, including whether they receive unconditional love, nurture and care,

Parents can have a wide range of responses to having an LGBTIQ+ child, from active support to abuse or disowning their child. Of course, many if not most will be somewhere in-between. Because parents are central to the lives of their children, the way they respond to their child’s emerging sexuality and gender identity plays a crucial role in how the child sees themself, impacting on self-esteem, risk-taking behaviours, relationships and long-term health. 

The We Are The Rainbow manual and program for working with parents and families is a resource we make available to our implementing partner groups and organisations so that they could establish parent programs themselves. This can be challenging work, so Many Coloured Sky also provides ongoing support to these partner organisations aimed at shared learning and continuous program improvement.