Programs and Resources
- Persons
In Committed
Relationships and
Their Children - GLBT Youth
- Families
and Friends
of GLBTs - General
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CPCSM
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Links
More About CPCSM's New Book
From Haworth Press
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| Make sure your Catholic school's LGBT students are getting the support they need. Creating Safe Environments for LGBT Students is a comprehensive training guidebook for educators who are committed to diversity and the full inclusion of LGBT students in every aspect of the Catholic high school experience. Based on five years of pilot testing in Catholic schools, this unique book emphasizes safe-staff training in integrating the Church's pastoral, social, and moral dimensions with the special needs of LGBT students. The book presents strategies and resources for building safer schools, helpful materials for communicating with parents, and general guidelines for developing and maintaining professional helping relationships with LGBT students. Based on a “training the trainer” model, Creating Safe Environments for LGBT Students encourages the development of grassroots leadership within the school. This unique book promotes a positive framework for navigating the challenging landscape of the Catholic tradition and the LGBT experience as it helps to establish anti-harassment and anti-bullying protocols for school environments and models for developing LGBT student support groups and gay/straight student alliances. The book promotes role-play by students, alumni, teachers, and parents—a hallmark of the ministry work and training methods of the Catholic Pastoral Committee on Sexual Minorities—and is flexible enough to allow each school's individual climate and culture to be respected. Creating Safe Environments for LGBT Students includes: * first-hand stories from students and teachers * realistic, dynamic, and creative role-play scenarios that explore various relationships between students, teachers, parents, administrators, and the school board * opening prayer and meditation rituals * a special foreword by Bishop Thomas J. Gumbleton, one of the few Catholic bishops to publicly affirm LGBT persons * an extensive bibliography and glossary regarding the experiences, language, culture, and spirituality of LGBT youth * the latest research findings on at-risk behaviors of LGBT teenagers * training handouts that are easy to duplicate and use as transparencies * a manual log that can be used as a training diary * and much more!Creating Safe Environments for LGBT Students is an essential resource for faculty and staff members at Catholic high schools, particularly school administrators, chaplains, campus ministers, psychologists, social workers, and counselors. |
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“If you're looking for a Catholic resource that hammers home only the Church's official moral teaching about homosexual actions, this is not the resource for you. However, if you're looking for a tool to help create a safe and pastoral environment for LGBT teens, this is AN EXCELLENT RESOURCE. While official Catholic moral teaching is presented clearly and respectfully, there is also ample room here for Catholic social teaching, respect for the inherent and abiding dignity of all, the human sciences, and pastoral care—all grappling with the honest questions LGBT teens really ask. Use the whole program OR select what will work in your school setting. It's A MULTI-FACETED AND SENSITIVELY-WRITTEN FIVE-SESSION MINI-COURSE.”
“AN EXCELLENT RESOURCE AND A CLEAR CALL TO ACTION. . . . Thoughtful and thorough and effectively addresses many levels and aspects of this important work. It challenges the reader and the participants of Safe Staff Trainings to be critical thinkers, to have adequate knowledge about GLBT issues, and to be prepared for each level of the work. They wisely remind the reader to make strong pedagogical connections as they raise GLBT issues in Catholic school, to understand school policies, and to more deeply investigate and embrace the Catholic social teaching of justice. . . .Includes clearly articulated directions for those implementing Safe Staff Training in their schools. . . .Provides useful and concrete training activities and tools. I especially appreciate how the book includes the courageous voices and moving stories of GLBT youth, and those adults (parents and teachers) who love them. It is gratifying to see that the Safe Staff model that originated in the St. Paul Public School's Out for Equity's Program is being adapted, expanded and implemented to create safe school climates for GLBT youth in Catholic schools. Having led the charge in 1994 to create Out for Equity, a program serving GLBT students, staff and families in St. Paul Public Schools, I know first hand that this work takes courage. The authors and contributors to this book, indeed, have taken a courageous stand. They are to be commended. . . . A wonderful guide for those who care about our GLBT youth. The book is a testimony to those whose leadership has pushed educators in Catholic Education to take a stand for our GLBT youth.”
“CATHOLIC EDUCATION HAS LONG NEEDED THIS WORTHY RESOURCE book for addressing the challenges of increasing numbers of students who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender as well as the rest of the school community who need to be equipped to respond with understanding and compassion. In my experience teachers and staff are asking for strategies and models of response as well as their justification in Church teaching. Creating Safe Environments for LGBT Students is THE BEST AND MOST COMPREHENSIVE RESPONSE I HAVE SEEN. I especially recommend Section 4 for its well-documented presentation on the Church teachings that root this work as a pastoral responsibility and Section 5, which helps us to see this work as the fulfillment of the mission of Catholic education.”
“ADDRESSES AN ISSUE AT THE FRONTIER OF DIVERSITY TRAINING FOR CATHOLIC SCHOOLS. This five session, comprehensive training program is the resource that Catholic schools need to create an environment of dignity and respect for those students who are lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender. With its engaging background readings and provocative discussion questions, the training program is tailor-made for raising the consciousness of caring, well-intentioned faculty members who may not be aware of the needs of the LGBT teens in their school. Teachers will be grateful to receive the thoughtful advice offered on such practical matters as how best to support a student who has been harassed, how to present the Church's teaching on human sexuality while still honoring the dignity of every student in the room, and how to respond to speech or behavior which expresses homophobic attitudes. Objections, questions and concerns that may be raised by members of the school community are addressed head on in an INTELLIGENT AND SENSITIVE manner. The program is TRULY COMPREHENSIVE: sessions cover everything from the psychological and theological underpinnings of the program's approach, to school policy, to classroom management and interpersonal boundary-setting. Excellent student skit and prayer service ideas are included, along with an extensive bibliography for further reading. Fifteen years ago, the USCCB called for educators to offer 'a special degree of pastoral understanding and care' toward youth whose sexual orientation was homosexual. . . . OFFERS THE TOOLS THAT CATHOLIC SCHOOLS NEED to respond to that call.”
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