Policy & Practice: Soapbox - Young lesbians, gays and bisexualsneed extra help

I became involved with Connexions Brighton and Hove when a youth participation worker came to visit Allsorts. Since then, I have attended local management committee meetings and taken part in youth-focused sessions across Sussex.

But the more local management committee meetings I attended, the more apparent it became that something was missing.

While there was clear target-setting and monitoring on core areas such as teenage pregnancy and substance misuse, there was nothing about lesbian, gay and bisexual young people or about reducing the number of young people from that group not in education, employment or training. Little was also being done to tackle related problems such as suicide and self-harm. From my experience, there is a great deal of social exclusion among lesbian, gay and bisexual young people.