Category: Professional News

B4U-ACT is pleased to announce our 2026 conference, Toward a Shared Goal: Uniting Researchers, Providers, and Community to Promote a Better Understanding of MAPs. This year’s event will bring together researchers, mental health professionals, and community members who are committed to advancing ethical, research-informed approaches to supporting minor-attracted people (MAPs).

The conference will take place June 12–14, 2026, in the American Southwest. We invite you to join us for three days of connection, collaboration, and forward-thinking discussion.

Our keynote speakers will be Ian McPhail, PhD, CPsych (Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University) and David Ortmann, MSW, LCSW (author of Sexual Outsiders). Sessions will include presentations, panels, roundtables, and interactive workshops that highlight new insights, emerging research, and shared goals for progress.

Registration details will be available soon. For now, please feel free to reach out to conference@b4uact.org with any questions.

We hope to see you there.

Warm regards,
B4U-ACT

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Today, B4U-ACT published a new report on injustices experienced by minor-attracted people and professionals within the mental health system and academia. This report was written and compiled by the MAP Mental Health and Human Rights Study Group, a working group consisting of ten therapists, researchers, and minor-attracted people. The group was formed in November of 2023 as a result of a discussion at a monthly meeting of B4U-ACT’s Dialog on Therapy.

Over the next several months the group solicited stories from MAPs, clinicians who work with them, and scholars who study their lives about injustices and unfair treatment they have faced. After collecting these stories, the group developed this document to educate professionals and the public about these injustices and the widespread impacts they have.

Our hope is that this document provides insight into the unique challenges and stigma facing people attracted to children and adolescents and the professionals who work with this population, and becomes a foundation for future work to address the systemic and structural restrictions which produce these issues.

B4U-ACT also wishes to express our deep gratitude to the minor-attracted people, mental health professionals, and researchers who shared their experiences of injustices, discrimination, harassment and other mistreatment over the course of the project. This report would not have been possible without you.