LGBTQ+ Families in Therapy: Ethical Considerations for Family Systems Work
Your Live PresenterCarrington Goidel, LCSW
Join us live on Friday, April 9, 2027 for an interactive webinar on LGBTQ+ families in therapy, led by Carrington Goidel, LCSW. Learn how to provide affirming family-systems care, navigate differing beliefs across family members, and account for minority stress in the family context, with the chance to ask questions and discuss real clinical scenarios with the presenter and your peers.
Apr 9, 2027
3:15 PM EST
CE Hours
Webinar
A live webinar link and access details are sent by email after you register. Attendance for the full session is required to earn your 3 live CE hours.
Your Presenter
Carrington Goidel, LCSW
Licensed Clinical Social Worker
Carrington Goidel is a licensed clinical social worker specializing in LGBTQ+ affirming care, trauma, and family therapy. She brings a trauma-informed, relational approach to each session, with a focus on practical clinical strategies clinicians can apply immediately. In this live webinar, Carrington guides participants through the ethical realities of working with LGBTQ+ families, from providing affirming family-systems care to navigating conflicting beliefs among family members, with the kind of case discussion and Q&A that only a live format allows.
Why Attend This Webinar Live?
Working with LGBTQ+ families rarely fits a script. A parent may struggle to accept a child's identity, partners may disagree about disclosure, and clinicians must hold affirming values while staying ethical and clinically effective with every family member. Attending live gives you something a self-paced course cannot: the ability to ask questions in the moment, work through nuanced ethical and clinical scenarios in real time, and learn from the questions your peers raise.
Bring your toughest family therapy questions. Carrington answers participant questions throughout the webinar, so you leave with clarity on the situations that actually show up in your caseload, from family conflict over a member's identity to affirming care within religious families, rather than generic guidance.
Work through realistic scenarios involving differing family beliefs, disclosure, and minority stress as a group. Hearing how experienced clinicians reason through ambiguity builds the ethical and clinical judgment that written materials alone cannot teach.
Complete a full 3 CE hours in one focused, structured session. Your live CE certificate is issued after the webinar, giving you a meaningful block of your renewal requirement in a single afternoon.
Understanding the Scope: LGBTQ+ Families and Mental Health
LGBTQ+ individuals and their families are present in every clinical setting, and family acceptance is one of the strongest predictors of well-being for LGBTQ+ people. Understanding how often clinicians encounter these families, and how much family response shapes outcomes, helps explain why affirming, ethically grounded family-systems work matters so much.
Research indicates that the share of adults identifying as LGBTQ+ has grown substantially, particularly among younger generations, which means clinicians across every discipline increasingly work with LGBTQ+ clients and their families. Studies show that LGBTQ+ people experience higher rates of depression, anxiety, and suicidality, driven not by their identity but by chronic minority stress, stigma, and rejection. At the same time, research on family acceptance demonstrates that supportive families dramatically reduce these risks, which places family therapists in a powerful position to improve outcomes while navigating the ethical complexity of working with families who may not share the same beliefs.
Live LGBTQ+ Families in Therapy Webinar Overview
This live continuing education webinar was developed in 2025 for mental health professionals and is delivered in real time by Carrington Goidel, LCSW. Family systems work with LGBTQ+ families asks clinicians to affirm each member's identity while holding the whole family in mind, and the ethical questions that follow, especially around differing beliefs, disclosure, and confidentiality, are among the most nuanced in clinical practice. This 3-hour live webinar provides licensed professional counselors, social workers, marriage and family therapists, psychologists, and addiction counselors with practical, up-to-date guidance for providing affirming, ethically sound family-systems care.
The webinar begins with the foundations of affirming practice and the minority stress model, then applies them to the family system: how rejection, ambivalence, and acceptance move through a family, and how the therapist can support change without taking sides in a way that fractures the alliance. Participants learn to define the client, clarify confidentiality across members, and hold space for family members at different points in their understanding.
Beyond affirming stance, this training addresses the ethical realities of the work: respecting family and religious values while never endorsing conversion practices, managing disclosure and outing risk, using inclusive and accurate documentation, and staying within scope when individual and family needs conflict. Because it is delivered live, you can raise your own clinical questions and hear the presenter reason through them alongside you.
Who Should Attend This Live Webinar?
This live webinar on LGBTQ+ families in therapy is designed for licensed mental health professionals across all disciplines and experience levels who work with families, couples, children, and adolescents in private practice, community mental health, schools, and integrated care settings.
Counselors regularly work with LGBTQ+ clients and their families and face ethical dilemmas around affirming care, disclosure, and family conflict that individual-focused training does not fully address. This webinar helps counselors develop an affirming family-systems approach and clear ethical practices that protect clients and reduce professional risk.
Social workers see LGBTQ+ families across agencies, hospitals, schools, and private practice, often alongside broader systems concerns. This ASWB ACE-approved webinar provides social workers with the knowledge and skills needed to apply the minority stress model, support family acceptance, and manage confidentiality and disclosure ethically.
Families are the core of MFT practice, and LGBTQ+ families bring distinct dynamics around identity, acceptance, and belief differences. This training strengthens MFTs' frameworks for affirming family-systems work, navigating loyalty and disclosure, and protecting the therapeutic alliance with every family member.
Minority stress and family rejection are linked to higher substance use among LGBTQ+ people, and addiction counselors often involve families in treatment. This NAADAC-approved webinar helps addiction professionals engage LGBTQ+ families affirmingly, address minority stress, and manage confidentiality across individual and family care.
Psychologists providing family therapy, conducting assessment, or supervising trainees need current knowledge of affirming practice, minority stress, and the ethics of family-systems work with LGBTQ+ families. This webinar covers evidence-based approaches to affirming care, defining the client, and meeting the standard of care.
Live Webinar Learning Objectives
Upon completing this live LGBTQ+ families in therapy webinar, mental health professionals will be able to:
- Describe key concepts of affirming practice and how they apply to family systems work with LGBTQ+ families
- Explain the minority stress model and how stigma, rejection, and concealment affect LGBTQ+ family members and the family as a whole
- Identify how acceptance, ambivalence, and rejection move through a family system and influence clinical outcomes
- Apply strategies for supporting family acceptance without taking sides in a way that damages the therapeutic alliance
- Navigate differing family, cultural, and religious beliefs while maintaining an affirming, ethical stance and avoiding conversion practices
- Manage confidentiality, disclosure, and outing risk across multiple family members
- Use inclusive, accurate, and respectful language in assessment, documentation, and treatment planning
- Clarify who the client is and stay within scope when individual and family needs conflict
- Recognize relevant ethical and legal considerations, including affirming-care standards and mandated reporting
- Coordinate affirming care with schools, medical providers, and community resources when appropriate
What This Live Webinar Covers
Establish a shared foundation for affirming care within a family systems lens: core terminology, the difference between tolerance and affirmation, and why the family, not just the individual, is the unit of care. Explore how an affirming stance shapes assessment, engagement, and treatment planning from the first session.
Understand how distal stressors such as discrimination and rejection, and proximal stressors such as concealment and internalized stigma, affect LGBTQ+ family members. Learn how minority stress shows up in family dynamics and how affirming family work can buffer its impact.
Develop skills for holding an affirming, ethical position while respecting family members who hold differing cultural or religious beliefs. Learn how to reduce conflict, avoid endorsing conversion practices, and move a family toward greater acceptance without alienating any member.
Address the ethical realities of managing information across family members, including identity disclosure, protecting a minor's or partner's privacy, and preventing unintended outing. Learn to set clear confidentiality expectations before and during family work.
Explore the ethical and legal landscape of affirming family work: defining the client, using inclusive and accurate documentation, meeting affirming-care standards, and staying within scope when individual and family needs conflict. Review relevant considerations including mandated reporting and referral.
Learn to connect families with affirming resources across schools, medical providers, and community organizations. Explore how coordinated, wraparound support strengthens family acceptance and reinforces the work done in session.
This webinar is $60 on its own. With Unlimited Plus ($129/year), you get this live webinar plus all 24 live sessions across the year and our full library of 100+ on-demand courses. If you plan to attend more than one live event, the annual plan pays for itself immediately.
Get Unlimited Plus: $129/YearHow the Live Webinar Works
1. Register. Reserve your spot for the April 9, 2027 webinar. Individual registration is $60 for all 3 CE hours, or attend at no additional cost with an Unlimited Plus membership.
2. Receive your access link. After you register, you will receive a confirmation email with the live webinar link and instructions for joining. A reminder is sent before the event.
3. Attend live. Join on Friday, April 9, 2027 from 12:00 PM to 3:15 PM EST. Attendance for the full session is required to earn your 3 live CE hours. Participate in the Q&A and case discussion throughout the session.
4. Complete the post-test and earn your CE certificate. Complete the post-test (required for all live webinars) and course evaluation to receive your 3-hour live CE certificate. Your certificate includes all information required by licensing boards.
The Minority Stress Model: An Affirming Family-Systems Framework
The minority stress model, developed by Ilan Meyer, explains how the elevated mental health risks seen among LGBTQ+ people arise not from identity itself but from chronic exposure to stigma, prejudice, and rejection. Applied to family systems work, the model gives clinicians a structured way to understand how stress enters a family, how it is amplified or buffered by family responses, and where affirming intervention can make the greatest difference. This live webinar walks through each component and gives you the chance to ask how to apply it with your own families.
Point 1: Distal Stressors. Identify external, objective stressors such as discrimination, rejection, harassment, and family conflict over identity that directly affect the LGBTQ+ family member and ripple through the system.
Point 2: Proximal Stressors. Recognize internal stress processes such as concealment, expectations of rejection, and internalized stigma, and help the family understand how these shape communication and connection.
Point 3: Family Response as Amplifier or Buffer. Assess how family acceptance, ambivalence, or rejection either intensifies minority stress or protects against it, and target family response as a key point of intervention.
Point 4: Moving Toward Acceptance. Use affirming, non-shaming strategies to help ambivalent or struggling family members move toward acceptance while respecting their starting point and beliefs.
Point 5: Building Protective Factors. Strengthen resilience factors such as connectedness, affirming community, and coping skills that buffer minority stress for the whole family.
Point 6: Ethical Guardrails. Maintain an affirming, ethical stance throughout, protecting confidentiality and disclosure, avoiding conversion practices, and staying within scope as individual and family needs evolve.
Live LGBTQ+ Families in Therapy CE Approvals
This live webinar on LGBTQ+ families in therapy is approved for continuing education credit by the following national and state organizations. Our approvals ensure that mental health professionals can earn live CE credit accepted by their licensing boards.
NBCC: Therapy Trainings® has been approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 7439. Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. Therapy Trainings® is solely responsible for all aspects of the programs. This live LGBTQ+ families in therapy webinar qualifies for 3 NBCC clock hours.
ASWB ACE: Therapy Trainings®, #1945, is approved as an ACE provider to offer social work continuing education by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) Approved Continuing Education (ACE) program. Regulatory boards are the final authority on courses accepted for continuing education credit. ACE provider approval period: 12/6/2024-12/6/2027. Social workers completing this live webinar receive 3 continuing education credits.
NAADAC: This live LGBTQ+ families in therapy continuing education webinar has been approved by Therapy Trainings®, as a NAADAC Approved Education Provider, for 3 CE hours. NAADAC Provider #270493. Therapy Trainings® is responsible for all aspects of its programming.
Kentucky: Therapy Trainings® is approved by the Kentucky Board of Social Work as a continuing education provider. Provider #KBSWSP 202308.
Ohio: Therapy Trainings® is approved by the Ohio Counselor, Social Worker, and Marriage and Family Therapist Board (CSWMFT) as a continuing education provider.
Florida: Therapy Trainings® is a CE Broker approved provider for the Florida Board of Clinical Social Work, Marriage & Family Therapy and Mental Health Counseling. CE Broker Provider #50-40520. You can self-report your completed hours using this provider number.
Live LGBTQ+ Families in Therapy Webinar: Frequently Asked Questions
See the Full Live CE Schedule
This LGBTQ+ families in therapy webinar is one of 24 live CE sessions we are offering throughout the year, covering ethics, telehealth, trauma, family systems, and more. Browse the full schedule to plan your live CE, or get every session included with Unlimited Plus.
Reserve Your Spot for April 9, 2027
Earn 3 live CE hours in a single session with Carrington Goidel, LCSW. Register for this webinar on its own, or attend every live session this year with Unlimited Plus.
Live CE certificate issued after the webinar. NBCC, ASWB ACE, and NAADAC approved.
Course curriculum
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About this course
- $60.00
- 2 lessons
- 0 hours of video content