About the HRC Family Project
The Human Rights Campaign Foundation Family Project serves as a comprehensive resource for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender families. The project provides information on a wide range of issues including adoption, civil unions, custody and visitation, donor insemination, family law, marriage, parenting, schools, senior health and housing, state laws and legislation, straight spouses and transgender issues. In addition to maintaining inclusive and up to date resources for LGBT families in the U.S., the project provides guidance to those that work closely with these families in various fields such as adoption agencies, social workers, and healthcare institutions.
The HRC Family Project runs the following initiatives:
All Children- All Families
All Children - All Families helps to find permanent families for children by promoting policies that welcome LGBT foster and adoptive parents. The program works to help enhance LGBT competence among child welfare professionals, and increase opportunities for LGBT people to become foster or adoptive parents to waiting children. The All Children - All Families Promising Practices Guide, training videos and agency assessment tool raise awareness of LGBT issues among child welfare professionals across the country. The project will culminate in a searchable database that will be accessed through the Family Project’s website, making it easier to find LGBT friendly adoption agencies. For more information, visit http://www.hrc.org/acaf .
Healthcare Equality Index
The Healthcare Equality Index (HEI) is a joint project of the Human Rights Campaign Foundation Family Project and the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association. Released each spring, the HEI focuses on five main policy areas: patient non-discrimination, hospital visitation, decision making, cultural competency training and employment policies. The initial focus of the project is hospital policies, but the project will expand to include long-term care, assisted living, hospice, community health clinics and other branches of the healthcare industry in the future. For more information, visit http://www.hrc.org/hei .
Welcoming Schools
The cornerstone of this initiative is the Welcoming Schools Guide, a comprehensive guide for creating elementary school environments that support and affirm the children of LGBT families. The Guide will provide administrators, educators and parents/guardians with a full range of materials to empower and encourage everyone to create learning environments in which all learners are welcome and respected. Topics addressed in the Welcoming Schools Guide include family diversity, gender stereotyping and name-calling. For more information, visit http://www.welcomingschools.org/ .
