Identity, belonging & family systems
Affirming, family-centered work informed by clinical social work, community practice, behavioral health, research, and organizational accountability.
Through MSW field practice at the Pride Center of Staten Island, Christopher provided affirming individual and couples support, participated in treatment and safety planning, and helped develop DBT-informed group learning. His work recognizes identity as part of the whole person—not a problem to be solved—and centers dignity, consent, self-determination, and belonging.
LGBTQIA+ children and young people experience families, schools, peer networks, congregate care, foster care, and public systems simultaneously. Christopher considers attachment, developmental needs, caregiver capacity, chosen family, rejection and acceptance, minority stress, trauma, housing stability, and community connection.
His applied assessment work includes the Bronx LGBT Needs Assessment and an LGBTQIA+ Community Needs Assessment through the Pride Center of Staten Island. These projects connect community voice, service access, behavioral health, program planning, and structural conditions.
Affirming practice cannot depend on one supportive professional. Christopher’s training and program-development work addresses language, policy, supervisory response, documentation, referral networks, organizational climate, and accountability so inclusion becomes consistent practice.
More than two decades of LGBTQIA+ service have included nonprofit program leadership, behavioral health, homelessness and housing services, policy and advisory work, community boards, national training, and advocacy.
Practice in perspective
