In this piece for the Chronicle of Social Change, Bianca Wilson, a senior scholar of public policy at the UCLA School of Law’s Williams Institute, argues that there is a need to collect data on the number of LGBTQ youth in the US child welfare system. The piece is written in response to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) March 2018 call for public comment on whether a 2016 final ruling requiring child welfare departments to gather and report data related to the sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression of youth in the foster care system should be maintained. "They should," writes Wilson. "When we know the characteristics and experiences of youth coming in and out of the system, we can analyze whether there are gaps in care and whether there are certain groups experiencing disparities."
