Creating Safe and Supportive Learning Environments

"Creating Safe and Supportive Learning Environments provides much-needed practical advice for working with LGBTQ youth and families. The editors and authors contribute extensive expertise in developing this timely and comprehensive resource for education professionals. The chapters addressing legal and ethical mandates, prevention, and intervention strategies provide essential information for professional development and school level reforms to support LGBTQ youth. Professionals, faculty, and students will benefit from reading this important book." -Shane R. Jimerson, PhD, professor of counseling, clinical, and school psychology at the University of California-Santa Barbara "This is an engrossing, readable, insightful, and eminently practical book. As more and more LGBTQQI students and their families are open in the presentation of their lives to and participation in their local schools, those school administrators, teachers, counselors, and staff have an even higher responsibility to ensure they are welcome and treated with respect. Creating Safe and Supportive Learning Environments should be required reading for anyone working in the K-12 schools." -Mark Pope, EdD, professor and chair, department of counseling and family therapy, College of Education, University of Missouri-Saint Louis "Fisher and Komosa-Hawkins provide a remarkable opportunity for readers to engage with leading scholars and practitioners in the field on a broad range of topics, each of which is critical in guiding efforts to improve the school experiences of LGBTQ students." -Eliza Byard, PhD, executive director, Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) "School-based professionals should have the capacity and commitment to fully and meaningfully support LGBTQ students and their families. This important volume bridges practice and research, providing accessible, relevant, and timely guidance and resources. By addressing key research-based conditions for learning, it has great potential to improve the lives of LGBTQ students and contribute to the growing and much-needed focus on their well-being." -Jeffrey M. Poirier, MA, senior researcher, American Institutes for Research, and coeditor, Improving Emotional and Behavioral Outcomes for LGBT Youth