Working With LGBTQ+ Youth/Adolescents: Gender And Sexuality Development

This collaborative and interactive training explores the sexuality and gender development for youth and adolescents, covering topics including affirming therapeutic approaches to working with youth and adolescents exploring gender and sexuality, common mental health concerns, strategies for working with families, and becoming an affirming provider for LGBTQ+ youth and adolescents.

This training is geared toward mental health providers seeking to gain greater competencies related to therapeutic interventions to employ when working with queer and gender diverse youth and adolescents.

This training examines theory, research, and the assessment of adolescent sexual and gender development, decision-making, and risk-taking behaviors. The course will cover both health gender development and sexual development of youth and adolescents, providing skills for working with both affirming and non-affirming families and/or primary caregivers of queer and gender diverse youth and adolescents. The course will also cover co-morbid mental health concerns amongst queer and gender diverse youth and adolescents.

4 CEs are available for NYS LMHCs, LMSWs, LCSWs, LMFTs, LCATs, NYS Licensed Psychologists and NYS Licensed Psychoanalysts upon completion of training.

Learning Objectives:

Upon successful completion of the training

-participants will understand what healthy gender development/socialization processes are and the strategies to be a gender affirming provider for gender diverse youth and adolescents.

-participants will understand what healthy sexuality development/socialization processes are and the strategies to be a sexuality affirming provider for sexually expansive youth and adolescents.

-participants will learn about common mental health concerns, decision-making and risk-taking behaviors for queer and gender diverse youth and adolescents.

-participants will be provided skills and resources to work with the families and primary caregivers of queer and gender diverse youth and adolescents, both for affirming and non-affirming families/primary caregivers.

-participants will be able to apply supportive strategies and other best practices in their clinical work providing psychotherapeutic services for queer and gender diverse youth and adolescents.

In accordance with the NY State Department of Education guidelines, in order to receive continuing education contact hours, a participant needs to be present for the duration of the workshop/training. Therefore, participants who arrive late or leave the event early will not be granted a certificate of completion.

​Cancellation Policy: Refunds will be provided for cancellations made in writing up to the day before the event.

Accommodations and Accessibility: HVPD welcomes participants with diverse abilities. Please contact us at info@hudsonvalleyprofessionaldevelopment.com to request accessibility accommodations. Accommodation requests are considered in accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act.

Nyx Melody, LMHC (pronouns: they/them/theirs & fae/faer/faers) is a queer, panromantic, non-binary, trans femme New York State licensed mental health counselor, clinical supervisor, educator and consultant on anti-oppression, mental health, gender/sexuality, and LGBTQIA+ issues. They have had experience working with individuals, couples, and groups who are struggling with various issues, including but not limited to: trauma/abuse, gender/sexual identity, anxiety, depression, substance use, acculturation, racial identity exploration, and dismantling internalized inferiority and/or superiority.

Nyx completed a dual master’s degree: Masters of the Arts in Psychological Counseling and a Masters of Education in Mental Health Counseling from Teachers College, Columbia University, where faer took extensive course work and engaged in research initiatives surrounding queer and gender-expansive microaggressions/mental health concerns.

Fae also works as an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Psychology & Education at Teachers College, Columbia University and is an Adjunct Instructor in the Department of Applied Psychology at NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development teaching mental health counseling graduate students.

Nyx has had the privilege of working in and amongst diverse populations, which has reframed their approach to therapy in order to ensure that it is more adaptable, accessible, and demystified. Fae believes that therapy for too long has been a space that perpetuates the harmful ideologies in psychology that are rooted in whiteness, capitalism, and dehumanization.

Nyx is a cancer survivor, who provides one-on-one mentorship through the Imerman Angels organization. Fae has been a lifelong advocate and accomplice for dismantling oppressive systems, through which they are actively engaged in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives for two organizations: Montefiore Medical Center and Point Park University. Nyx has lived experience with and continues to engage in their own therapeutic healing surrounding trauma, abuse, sex work, their own gender and sexual identities, and the loss of their brother. Nyx has personally experienced the benefits of individual, couples, and group therapy both as a clinician and as a client.