Ferre Institute
Ferre Institute (Utica, NY), founded in 1974, is dedicated to providing exemplary community-based genetic/genomic counseling service to all regardless of insurance status. Ferre has developed resources and provided educational, as well as professional materials that promote accessible and medically accurate information to all that require it; especially underserved populations.
In 2000, the Lesbian and Gay Family Building Project was launched to provide education and support Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT)—headed families, LGBT individuals, as well as couples who want to add children to their families in upstate NY.
Over the past five years, the Project has offered a range of programs services and enjoyed considerable growth and development. On an annual basis, Ferre serves approximately 300 LGBT-led families through educational programs as well as family gatherings, and 100 providers through an annual statewide conference as well as training seminars and speaking engagements. The Project receives approximately 8,000 unique visitors to their website www.PrideAndJoyFamilies.org yearly. In addition, they reach nearly 10,000 LGBT individuals with information about our programs and services through LGBT newspapers.
Ferre has found that openly LGBT adults are creating families though international domestic adoption, foster parenting, donor insemination, surrogacy arrangements, and through blended and stepfamilies. LGBT families may include people of different races and ethnicities and children without biological ties to one another and their parent(s). The Project will engage LGBT families to recognize the importance of family heath history with LGBT-friendly tools to encourage the collection of information. Furthermore, Ferre will provide all of the LGBT participants who utilize the Family Health History Toolkitwith access to a genetic counselor to answer the unique questions that such families may face.
The Ferre Institute, in collaboration with Genetic Alliance, will:
- Survey 300 LGBT families from the Ferre database to determine family health history understanding and attitudes.
- Provide custom tools that work with non-biological relationships, including health histories of adoptive or stepparents and siblings, as well as biological relationships to surrogates, egg donors, and sperm donors.
- Disseminate 300 copies of the toolkit two to three months after the initial survey and a follow-up survey six weeks later.
- Provide professional support and expertise to LGBT families that have questions that have arisen from collecting family health histories.
Through analysis of responses to surveys given after the completion of the Does it Run in the Family? toolkit, Ferre will better understand the views of the LGBT community toward family health histories and help tailor the support provided by genetic counselors.
