What do I do if a young person comes out to me as Lesbian Gay or Bisexual?

Your first words to them and your body language need to be supportive. Thanking them for telling you and asking them if they need anything from the school will be useful. Having knowledge about local groups will be useful and websites that you trust might also be appropriate. However you will need to judge each person on their needs everyone is different.What is important is to recognize that in telling you they may not be saying that it is a problem.When the school usualises the existence of LGBT people then it is likely that young people will feel more comfortable in revealing such information about themselves and/or their family and social network. It would be wise for the school to have a policy for staff on how they deal with such information and how it is dealt with.If you believe this information might impact on a child protection issue e.g. if the pupil revealed they were engaged in a sexual relationship with an adult of the same sex you would have to mention this to you CP officer. You therefore ned to be clear with the student whether or not the information will remain confidential. If the student starts the conversation with “Can I tell you something in confidence?” You must answer that you cannot keep things private until you know what they are going to reveal. Afterwards you might then decide to keep this confidence if it clearly was not a child protection issue.