• Child welfare personnel repeatedly move a lesbian youth from one inappropriate placement to another, subjecting her to constant rejection and discrimination and depriving her of a permanent home or family.
• Detention facility staff place a gay youth in isolation "for his own protection," depriving him of education, recreation, companionship, or other programming and services.
• Line staff in a group home fail to intervene when residents harass and abuse a transgender youth because they believe he "asked for it" by being open about his gender identity.

These disturbingly common practices illustrate the serious problems in the care of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems. The lack of professional guidance related to youths' sexual identities has left a vacuum that is often filled by harmful, discriminatory practices based on personal biases rather than informed, evidence based policies. The best practice guidelines in this book will improve outcomes for youth with accurate, up-to-date information about the best practices for providing competent services to youth who are lesbians, gay, bisexual, or transgender.