LGBTQIA+ Cultural Competency for Behavioral Health Clinicians: Live Webinar
Your Live PresenterCarrington Goidel, LCSW
Join us live on Wednesday, January 20, 2027 for an interactive LGBTQIA+ cultural competency webinar led by Carrington Goidel, LCSW. Learn affirming care practices, the minority stress model, and inclusive assessment and intake in real time, with the chance to ask questions and discuss real clinical scenarios with the presenter and your peers.
Jan 20, 2027
3:45 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 3.5 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 affirming assessment, the minority stress framework, and inclusive intake practices, blending evidence-based frameworks with the kind of case discussion and Q&A that only a live format allows.
Why Attend This Webinar Live?
Affirming care is built on language, nuance, and self-awareness, and it is rarely as simple as memorizing terminology. Attending live gives you something a self-paced course cannot: the ability to ask questions in the moment, work through nuanced clinical scenarios in real time, and learn from the questions your peers raise.
Bring your toughest clinical questions. Carrington answers participant questions throughout the webinar, so you leave with clarity on the situations that actually show up in your caseload rather than generic guidance.
Work through realistic affirming assessment and inclusive intake scenarios as a group. Hearing how experienced clinicians reason through ambiguity builds the clinical judgment that written materials alone cannot teach.
Complete a full 3.5 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 morning.
Understanding the Scope: LGBTQIA+ Mental Health
LGBTQIA+ individuals experience mental health disparities that are driven not by their identity but by chronic exposure to stigma, discrimination, and rejection. Understanding the scope of these disparities helps behavioral health clinicians recognize why affirming, culturally competent care is essential to effective treatment.
Research from organizations such as the Williams Institute and The Trevor Project indicates that LGBTQIA+ people, and especially transgender and nonbinary individuals, experience elevated rates of depression, anxiety, and suicidality compared with their heterosexual and cisgender peers. Studies show that affirming clinical environments and access to knowledgeable providers are associated with meaningfully reduced distress. These findings underscore why every behavioral health professional needs training in affirming care, the minority stress model, and inclusive assessment.
Live LGBTQIA+ Cultural Competency 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. LGBTQIA+ clients frequently enter treatment carrying the effects of stigma, rejection, and prior negative experiences with providers, and clinicians play a critical role in offering care that is affirming, safe, and effective. This 3.5-hour live webinar provides licensed professional counselors, social workers, marriage and family therapists, psychologists, and addiction counselors with practical training in affirming care practices, the minority stress model, and inclusive assessment and intake.
The webinar begins by building a shared, current vocabulary for sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression, and then explores how minority stress, both external and internalized, shapes mental health outcomes. Participants learn to recognize the difference between competence and humility, and to create therapeutic environments where clients feel safe disclosing their identities without fear of judgment, pathologizing, or having to educate their clinician.
Beyond foundational knowledge, this training emphasizes concrete clinical skills including affirming intake and documentation, respectful use of names and pronouns, inclusive assessment, and responding effectively to microaggressions and ruptures. The webinar addresses ethical obligations and scope of practice for affirming work. 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 LGBTQIA+ cultural competency training is designed for licensed mental health professionals across all disciplines and experience levels, working in private practice, community mental health, hospitals, schools, and other settings where they serve LGBTQIA+ clients and families.
Counselors provide the majority of outpatient mental health services in the United States and regularly work with LGBTQIA+ clients across the lifespan. This training helps counselors develop competency in affirming care, minority stress conceptualization, and inclusive assessment so they can build trust and deliver effective treatment.
Social workers encounter LGBTQIA+ clients across diverse practice settings including hospitals, community agencies, schools, and private practice. This ASWB ACE-approved webinar provides social workers with the knowledge and skills needed to offer affirming care, reduce barriers to access, and advocate within the systems their clients navigate.
Family therapists work with LGBTQIA+ individuals, couples, and families, including families navigating a member's coming out or gender transition. This training provides MFTs with strategies for affirming relational work, supporting family acceptance, and addressing minority stress within the family context.
LGBTQIA+ individuals experience elevated rates of substance use linked to minority stress, making affirming care a critical skill for addiction counselors. This NAADAC-approved webinar helps addiction professionals understand these connections and integrate inclusive, non-stigmatizing practices into assessment and treatment.
Psychologists conducting assessments, providing therapy, or supervising trainees need current knowledge of affirming practice and the minority stress model. This webinar covers evidence-informed approaches, inclusive assessment, and ethical considerations relevant to psychological practice with LGBTQIA+ clients.
Live Webinar Learning Objectives
Upon completing this live LGBTQIA+ cultural competency webinar, mental health professionals will be able to:
- Use current, respectful terminology for sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression, and understand the distinctions among these concepts
- Explain the minority stress model and how distal and proximal stressors contribute to mental health disparities among LGBTQIA+ populations
- Distinguish cultural competence from cultural humility and apply an ongoing, self-reflective approach to affirming practice
- Implement affirming intake, documentation, and assessment practices, including the respectful use of names and pronouns
- Create a safe, welcoming therapeutic environment that reduces the burden on clients to educate their clinician
- Recognize and respond effectively to microaggressions, misgendering, and ruptures in the therapeutic relationship
- Identify and address clinician bias, assumptions, and gaps in knowledge that can undermine affirming care
- Apply affirming approaches when supporting clients navigating coming out, family acceptance, and gender-affirming decisions
- Understand ethical obligations, scope of practice, and referral considerations in affirming clinical work
- Connect clients with appropriate affirming resources, community supports, and specialized care when indicated
What This Live Webinar Covers
Build a shared, current vocabulary for sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression, and learn why language matters clinically. Explore the difference between cultural competence and cultural humility, and why affirming practice is an ongoing process rather than a fixed credential.
Understand how distal stressors such as discrimination and rejection, and proximal stressors such as concealment, expectation of rejection, and internalized stigma, contribute to the mental health disparities seen among LGBTQIA+ populations. Learn to conceptualize client distress through this framework rather than pathologizing identity.
Translate affirming values into concrete clinical behaviors: respectful use of names and pronouns, avoiding assumptions, validating client experiences, and building trust. Learn how to create an environment where clients do not carry the burden of educating their clinician.
Redesign intake forms, documentation, and assessment questions to be inclusive of diverse identities and family structures. Learn how to gather clinically relevant information about identity and experience without making assumptions or requiring disclosure before a client is ready.
Recognize your own assumptions and knowledge gaps, and learn to identify and repair microaggressions, misgendering, and other ruptures in the therapeutic relationship. Practice responding with accountability rather than defensiveness to strengthen the alliance.
Explore ethical obligations, scope of practice, and referral considerations in affirming work, including when to consult or connect clients with specialized gender-affirming care. Close with community resources and supports clinicians can draw on to extend affirming care beyond the therapy room.
This webinar is $70 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 January 20, 2027 webinar. Individual registration is $70 for all 3.5 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 Wednesday, January 20, 2027 from 12:00 PM to 3:45 PM EST. Attendance for the full session is required to earn your 3.5 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 3.5-hour live CE certificate. Your certificate includes all information required by licensing boards.
The Minority Stress Model: A Framework for Affirming Care
The minority stress model, articulated by Ilan Meyer, explains that the mental health disparities observed among LGBTQIA+ populations are not caused by identity itself but by the chronic stress of living in a stigmatizing environment. Understanding this framework helps clinicians move away from pathologizing clients and toward addressing the actual drivers of distress. This live webinar walks through each element of the model and gives you the chance to ask how to apply it with your own clients.
Element 1: Distal Stressors. External, objective experiences of prejudice such as discrimination, harassment, rejection, and violence. These are events that happen to the person because of their identity.
Element 2: Expectation of Rejection. The vigilance and anticipation of being rejected or mistreated, which requires ongoing energy and can shape how clients approach relationships, including the therapeutic relationship.
Element 3: Concealment. The stress of hiding one's identity to stay safe, and the cognitive and emotional toll of managing who knows and who does not.
Element 4: Internalized Stigma. The internalization of negative societal messages about one's identity, which can contribute to shame, self-criticism, and diminished self-worth.
Element 5: Coping and Resilience. Individual and community resources, including social support, connection to affirming community, and pride, that can buffer the impact of minority stress.
Clinical Application. Use the model to conceptualize presenting concerns, validate the real-world sources of distress, and target interventions that build coping and connection rather than framing identity as the problem.
Live LGBTQIA+ Cultural Competency CE Approvals
This live LGBTQIA+ cultural competency webinar 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 LGBTQIA+ cultural competency webinar qualifies for 3.5 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 LGBTQIA+ cultural competency webinar receive 3.5 continuing education credits.
NAADAC: This live LGBTQIA+ cultural competency continuing education webinar has been approved by Therapy Trainings®, as a NAADAC Approved Education Provider, for 3.5 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. This live webinar qualifies for 3.5 continuing education hours.
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 LGBTQIA+ Cultural Competency Webinar: Frequently Asked Questions
See the Full Live CE Schedule
This LGBTQIA+ cultural competency webinar is one of 24 live CE sessions we are offering throughout the year, covering ethics, telehealth, trauma, clinical supervision, and more. Browse the full schedule to plan your live CE, or get every session included with Unlimited Plus.
Reserve Your Spot for January 20, 2027
Earn 3.5 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
- $70.00
- 2 lessons
- 0 hours of video content