Interventions for LGBTQ Youth Suicide: A Review of Two Books

Abstract

Despite trends in society toward more inclusive and affirming environments for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer/questioning (LGBTQ) persons, youth who identify as LGBTQ remain a vulnerable population. This paper reviews two recent books that address intervention in the lives of LGBTQ youth for the purpose of decreasing vulnerabilities to risk factors that contribute to unwanted mental health outcomes such as suicide, and increasing youth resiliency in the face of those vulnerabilities: Queer Youth Suicide, Culture, and Identity: Unliveable Lives? by Rob Cover (2012), and Safe Spaces: Making Schools and Communities Welcoming to LGBT Youth by Annemarie Vaccaro, Gerri August, and Megan S. Kennedy (2012). This review begins by providing a description of the content and style of each book, then moves into comparing and contrasting the books’ strengths and weaknesses and their respective approaches to addressing interventions with LGBTQ youth. The review concludes with implications for an audience of youth work practitioners, researchers, educators, and policymakers.

KEYWORDS:

• Adolescents
• book review
• intervention strategies
• LGBT youth
• mental health
• suicide

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Megan E. Gandy

Megan E. Gandy is a doctoral candidate in the School of Social Work at Virginia Commonwealth University. Her scholarly area of interest is children's mental health services research with a special focus on the needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) youth. Her dissertation will develop and validate a measurement instrument to assess LGBTQ cultural competency in direct care behavioral health youth workers.