The Family Acceptance Project™ team includes Project Director, Caitlin Ryan, Senior Quantitative Researcher, Rafael Dìaz and Project Coordinator, Jorge Sanchez. Teresa Betancourt worked on the first two phases of the project.

Undergraduate and graduate students work on the project as interns and volunteers, completing independent studies, theses and culminating experiences. Students work as an integral part of the project team and receive training in grants management and project coordination, outreach and community collaboration, qualitative and quantitative research methods and analysis, and develop interviewing, outreach, research administration and writing skills.

Caitlin Ryan

Caitlin Ryan is the Director of the the Family Acceptance Project.™ Caitlin is a clinical social worker who has worked on LGBT health and mental health since the 1970s, and AIDS since 1982. She received her clinical training with children and adolescents at Smith College School for Social Work in inpatient and community mental health programs, and began her social work career in school-based psychoeducational settings. Caitlin pioneered community-based AIDS services at the beginning of the epidemic; initiated the first major study to identify lesbian health needs in the early 1980s; and has worked to implement quality care for LGBT youth since the early 1990s. She developed the Family Acceptance Project™ with Rafael Diaz in 2002 to promote family support, decrease risk and improve well-being for LGBT youth.

Her book, Lesbian & Gay Youth: Care & Counseling—the first comprehensive guide to health and mental health care for lesbian and gay youth—was written as a follow up to the federal government's first conference on the primary care needs of lesbian and gay youth which she coordinated for the Health Resources and Services Administration. Her work has been acknowledged by many groups, including the American Association of Physicians for Human Rights and the National Association of People With AIDS. In 1988 she was named "Social Worker of the Year" by the National Association of Social Workers for her leadership and contributions to the AIDS epidemic and social change. She was named "Researcher of the Year" by the Lesbian Health & Research Center at the University of California, San Francisco for her pioneering work in lesbian health. And she received the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award from the American Psychological Association, Division 44.

Rafael Dìaz

Rafael Dìaz provides consultation for FAP on analysis and research methods. Rafael is a social worker and a developmental psychologist with post-doctoral training at The Center for AIDS Prevention Studies (CAPS), at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF). He was a faculty member at the University of New Mexico, Stanford University, and UCSF's CAPS program where he began his work on Latino gay men and HIV. Rafael was a Professor of Ethnic Studies at San Francisco State University (SFSU) and is the former Director of the César E. Chávez Institute at SFSU. His research includes major studies on Latino gay men, sexuality and substance use, including two 4-year studies "A Sociocultural Model of HIV Risk in Latino Gay Men," using qualitative, quantitative and intervention design methods in Los Angeles, Miami and New York, and "Drug Use and Risky Sexual Behavior in Latino Gay Men" and a 5-year study of community involvement as a protective factor for HIV infection among Latino gay men.

Rafael initiated the Family Acceptance Project™ with Caitlin Ryan in 2002 to undertake the first study on how family reactions affect the health, mental health and well-being of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth. Rafael has written extensively on bilingualism, self-regulation, Latino gay men, sexuality and culture. His book, Latino Gay Men and HIV: Culture, Sexuality, & Risk Behavior, has become the guiding framework for developing HIV prevention interventions with gay men of color.

Jorge Sanchez

Jorge Sanchez, is an ethnographer and Project Coordinator for the Family Acceptance Project.™ A native of Colombia, Jorge received his degree in Social Cultural Anthropology from the University of California at Berkeley. After working as an ESL instructor at Albany Middle School, Jorge served as the Program Director for the Oakland Recycling Association where he worked with instructors in the Oakland Unified School District to develop conservation resource curricula for middle school students. He began working in HIV education in 1996 as a facilitator for safe-sex workshops for Latino gay and bisexual men. Jorge joined the staff of Proyecto Contra SIDA Por Vida (PCPV), a Latina/o lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender HIV service agency, where he worked as Coordinator of Health Education/Media Specialist for two and a half years. After leaving Proyecto, Jorge worked as a member of the research team for a NIDA-funded study headed by Rafael Diaz on HIV Risk and Substance Use among gay and bisexual Latino men at the UCSF Center for AIDS Prevention Studies (CAPS). He moved to San Francisco State University (SFSU) as a member of Rafael's research team at the César E. Chávez Institute and joined the Family Acceptance Project™ team in 2003. Jorge has served in a variety of roles, as a member of the Board of Directors of PCPV, and on the City of Berkeley's Health and Waste Commission.

Student Interns and Volunteers

During the academic year and summer session, student interns and community volunteers have worked on the project in a wide range of capacities. Internships are generally planned in advance through academic and community programs, but interested students can contact the Project Director at fap@sfsu.edu to learn about internship and volunteer opportunities.

Intervention Collaboration

Lynn Dolce, MFT

Associate Director
Child and Adolescent Services
UCSF/SFGH Department of Psychiatry

Gil Woo, MA

Family Support Advocate
Child and Adolescent Services
UCSF/SFGH Department of Psychiatry

Project Consultants

Bill Bettencourt

Consultant
Family to Family Initiative

Stephen Russell

Professor & Fitch Nesbitt Endowed Chair, Family Studies & Human Development
University of Arizona
http://ag.arizona.edu/fcs/fshd/people/russell/russell.htm

Tawal Panyacosit & Andy Wong

Chinese for Affirmative Action, API Equality
San Francisco, CA
www.apiequality.org