CHLP Testimony before New York City Council Advocates for LGBTQ and System-involved Youth (2015)

October 27, 2015 -- The New York City Council held hearings today before the Committees on Education, Health and Women's Issues considering bills on student health services, comprehensive health education and sexual health educational training. CHLP, while supporting the committees’ efforts to ensure transparency in these areas, urged the committees to expand these efforts to benefit all young people, particularly LGBTQ, system-involved youth. 

In testimony before the commitees, CHLP staffer Pepis Rodriguez called for a resolution supporting written guarantees of LGBTQ-inclusive sexual and reproductive health and literacy services for youth in out-of-home care and for the committees to "help ensure that all young people, including our LGBTQ youth and our system-involved youth, have access to the sexual health services, sexual health literacy programs, and supportive and adequately trained staff they need to be safe and to thrive."  Rodriguez aslo urged the committees "to review our Teen SENSE Model Policies and Standards on sexual health care for youth in state custody, endorsed by ACS, for implementation.[1]

CHLP's testimony emphasized that increasing young people’s sexual health knowledge and ensuring access to sexual health services and programming are critical prevention strategies that can help stop sexual violence and promote healthy sexual attitudes and behaviors. 

To view CHLP's testimony, see links below for transcript and video (For video, see 02:22:50 - 02:26:35).