Dr. Caitlin Ryan, Social Work Affiliate, leads Family Acceptance Project
Caitlin Ryan, PhD, ACSW is a clinical social worker, educator and researcher who has worked on LGBTQ health, and mental health for decades and whose work has shaped policy and practice for LGBTQ children, youth and families. Dr. Ryan was an organizer in the early LGBTQ health movement who helped to develop the first AIDS program in the South at the beginning of the pandemic and developed AIDS policy during the 1980s and 1990s, including as Dr. Tony Fauci’s special assistant at the NIH. She conducted the first national lesbian health survey that identified lesbian health needs and launched the field of family support for LGBTQ children and youth over the past 25 years – to help racially, culturally and religiously diverse families to support their LGBTQ children.
Dr. Ryan founded the Family Acceptance Project (FAP) at San Francisco State University (SFSU) in 2002 to conduct the first research on LGBTQ young people and families to develop an evidence-based family support model to prevent health risks and promote well-being for LGBTQ children and youth. Historically, families of LGBTQ youth were seen as rejecting and incapable of learning to support their LGBTQ children so LGBTQ youth received services individually, like adults, or through peer support, but not in the context of their families.
FAP’s behavioral research identified more than 100 specific behaviors that parents and caregivers use to respond to their LGBTQ children. More than half of these behaviors are rejecting and contribute to health risks, including suicidality and substance use, and half are accepting and help protect against health risks and increase self-esteem, well-being, and a positive sense of the future. Dr. Ryan’s research is participatory and includes LGBTQ youth and families from racially, culturally, linguistically, and religiously diverse backgrounds. She has developed a series of multilingual, multicultural and faith-based family education resources to help families to support their LGBTQ children and trains on this work with SFSU students, and with providers, educators, families, and religious leaders across the U.S. and in other countries.
Dr. Ryan’s work has been recognized by national professional groups in the fields of counseling, medicine, nursing, psychiatry, psychology and social work, and by civic, LGBTQ, advocacy, arts and faith-based groups. This includes recognition for her work by the American Psychological Association’s Division 44 that gave her the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award for groundbreaking research on LGBTQ youth and families, by the American Psychiatric Association and by the Human Rights Campaign for lifetime contributions to well-being for LGBTQ youth and as NASW’s Social Worker of the Year for her contributions during the AIDS pandemic.