HRC 2021 Change-Makers Report Features Four Colorado Organizations

Human Rights Campaign has released a new report, 2021 Change-Makers, which highlights the HRC Foundation All Children-All Families (ACAF) program partnership with 119 organization (a 19 percent increase in participation over last year). The report includes four organizations in Colorado: Adams County Department of Human Services – Children & Family Services Division, Adoption Options, Colorado Office of Children, Youth & Families – Child Welfare Division, and Raise the Future.

“The third edition of our Change-Makers report shows that, despite the many hardships of the last year, more organizations than ever before are working alongside the Human Rights Campaign Foundation to make impactful change for the LGBTQ+ youth and families they serve,” says Alison Delpercio, Human Rights Campaign Foundation Director, All Children – All Families.

“This year’s participants also demonstrated a growing commitment to intersectionality and ensuring organizational policies and practices do not reinforce the same systems of oppression that put youth and families at risk in the first place. By taking on these challenges, the change-makers featured in our 2021 report are models for youth-serving professionals everywhere.”

The agencies featured in the report conducted an internal self-assessment, provided professional development to staff, and implemented ACAF’s “Benchmarks of LGBTQ Inclusion,” which is aimed at tracking policy and practice changes within agencies. The new report also features three tiers of recognition, which celebrate the progress agencies have made toward becoming fully welcoming to their  LGBTQ clients.

The program saw 32 new participants this year, which expanded their reach into six new states: Alabama, Connecticut, Mississippi, Montana, New Mexico, and North Carolina.

The release also comes during a time when many are elevating conversations surrounding risks foster youth face due to COVID-19 and the express need for LGBTQ inclusive work in foster care. Studies have shown that LGBTQ youth or overrepresented in foster care and that there is a need for child welfare systems to do more to ensure the trauma of foster care is never made worse by unsafe and/or non-affirming foster homes.

Child welfare agencies across the U.S. have used ACAF’s resources since 2007 to enhance their efforts in achieving safety, permanency, and well-being for LGBTQ youth and families. You can read the full Change-Makers report here.