BASW England LGBT History Month Event: Improving LGBTQ+ Young People's Experiences of Social Care

For LGBTQ+ History Month, BASW England has invited members from the LYPSA Project to discuss their research. This session is a good opportunity for social workers to learn about different challenges faced by LGBTQ+ youth in care and explore ways to improve their outcomes. 

The LYPSA (LGBTQ+ Young People in Social cAre) Project, which ended in 2023, involved three separate studies seeking to understand and improve the social care experiences of sexual and gender minority youth in England. The project was led by Dr Jason Schaub and funded by What Works for Children’s Social Care. The project team included Dr Willem Stander, Dr Jolie Keemink and Professor Paul Montgomery, as well as four young advisors. The three studies that made up the project were: 

• A systematic scoping review of the international evidence base concerning the health and wellbeing experiences of LGBTQ+ young people in foster and residential care;
• A qualitative interview study providing the first in-depth analysis of LGBTQ+ young people’s residential care experiences in England; and,
• The first randomised controlled trial testing the effectiveness of an LGBTQ+ e-learning training module for children’s social workers in England. An e-module for children and young people’s services delivered by Stonewall was used in this study.

The project included collaboration and co-production with a young advisors’ group who have lived experiences of social care and identify as LGBTQ+, as well as stakeholder groups connected to LGBTQ+ young people in social care. 

In this session, we’ll hear from researchers Dr Jason Schaub and Dr Willem Stander, and one of the young people who advised on the project, Omar Mohamed. There will be a Q&A session at the end of their presentation - please submit your questions at this link, as the presenters have asked that the chat be disabled for the session to prevent any harrassment. 

Dr Jason Schaub is an Associate Professor in Social Work, and Director of PGR for the School of Social Policy at the University of Birmingham. His teaching and research examine gender and sexuality, leadership in social work, and children and families social work. He is co-chair of the UK regional network for International Partnership for Queer Youth Resilience (INQYR) and previously chair of  Sexuality in Social Work interest group, and is a founding member of European Social Work Research Association. His research explores gender and sexuality, particularly focussing on LGBTQ+ young people and how professionals support them, using evidence-based methodologies and mixed methods. @JasonHSchaub // https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-schaub-4b44a920/

Dr Willem Stander is a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Birmingham specialising in research on the health and wellbeing of LGBTQ+ and youth populations as well as enhancing professionals’ practice with these groups. He is skilled in a broad range of qualitative and quantitative research methods, PRISMA-compliant reviews, and evaluative designs including randomised controlled trials. Much of Willem’s work is cross-disciplinary and he is particularly passionate about participatory and co-design approaches. He has also previously worked as a psychology lecturer teaching across a range of core psychology curriculum areas and social science programmes. @willemjstander // https://www.linkedin.com/in/willemjstander/

Omar Mohamed is a Newly Qualified Social Worker. Omar has 16 years of lived experience of social worker involvement around child protection and child in need work. This has involved experiences around child abuse, poverty, racism, domestic abuse, homelessness, complexities around sexual orientation, and a lack of cultural competence. Omar has actively engaged in student activism and has co-authored two book chapters on anti-racism and a book chapter on indigenous knowledge, as well as having presented and trained a variety of professionals and organisations in areas of experience. Omar has co-produced grass-roots activism projects with people with lived experience on different areas of experience. Omar has also led the IFSW Europe New Social Workers Project supporting new social workers to enact change on a European level based on methodologies to empower lived experiences. @OmarMohamedSW

Visit the project page on LinkedIn here.

Taster session available for non-members of BASW.* Non-members of BASW keen to learn more on the benefits of membership and receive updates on the valuable work we do are welcome to sign-up to our communication updates here. When you sign-up, you’ll automatically receive a registration code that can be used to waive the admin fee. If you are an expert by experience looking to attend this event, please email england@basw.co.uk for more information on how to sign up. 

*Subject to availability. Terms and conditions apply.