Trevor Goodyear, RN, MSN, MPH, PhD
Assistant Professor, School of Nursing, UBC
Member, Wellstream: The Canadian Centre for Innovation in Child and Youth Mental Health
Advancing homes of substance for 2S/LGBTQ+ youth: A photovoice study
Two-Spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and other sexual and gender minority (2S/LGBTQ+) youth aged 14 to 29 experience inequities in both homelessness and substance use. Yet, studies with 2S/LGBTQ+ youth direct limited attention to how these issues intersect. This presentation will introduce recent research that addressed this gap using knowledge synthesis and community-based photovoice methods. We will begin with a brief review of pertinent findings from an international scoping review study of transitions in homelessness among 2S/LGBTQ+ youth. Then, we will detail a Vancouver-based study involving 61 in-depth interviews and a participatory photography activity with N=32 2S/LGBTQ+ youth with past-year experience of substance use and homelessness. Analysis for this study leveraged constructionist qualitative approaches and theoretical perspectives from critical homelessness, drug, and gender/sexuality studies. We will review key findings from this work, now published in a series of articles exploring: (i) how substance use features in pathways to homelessness for 2S/LGBTQ+ youth; (ii) how drugs shape 2S/LGBTQ+ youths’ practices and contexts of ‘homemaking’; and (iii) how these youth navigate and negotiate ‘outness’ in the context of homelessness. The parts and sum of these analyses provide critical direction for research, policy, service delivery, including for supports to further consider and attend to the social contexts, meanings, and effects of 2S/LGBTQ+ youths’ substance use in connection with homelessness. The presentation will end by detailing this need and opening conversation about opportunities to address upstream drivers of inequity for 2S/LGBTQ+ youth.
This is a hybrid event, you may attend in person or virtually. Please register and indicate your preference.