Cultivating Professional Allies for Sexual Minority Youth: A Community-Based Educational Intervention

Sexual minority youth (SMY) face multiple risks in their daily lives that may influence their need for supportive care. Health and social service providers have unique opportunities to provide culturally competent services to these youth. This article describes a community-based educational intervention created to increase providers' knowledge, skills, and intention to support SMY. Based on the Information-Motivation-Behavioral Skills model, this pilot study found that for a diverse sample of multidisciplinary professionals (n = 2,850), the odds of behavioral intention (BI) to support SMY were significantly higher when trainings were relevant to the professionals' experience (OR = 1.3), were sensitive (OR = 1.3), developed skills (OR = 1.1), and incorporated policy (OR = 1.2). Implications for the delivery of community-based trainings are provided.