Random Post 2 – LGBTU Developments

Happy 2009! I hope that you had a good break and enjoyed whatever festivities you took part in. Here’s to a great 2009 with lots of new and exciting adventures in youth work!

Following on from my random posts before Christmas I thought I would keep giving a round up of how things are progressing down here in the South. I had a really successful meeting before Christmas (for me success was measured in the short time it took, the participation of members, and the amount of work done!) concerning the development of our LGBTU strategy. We have split the group into sub groups which are going to focus on Events / Social activities, PR and writing the actual strategy. This has been helpful in that it has really focused the work and enabled a group of us to start moving forward on developing different aspects. We’ve an update meeting at the beginning of February which I think will be very positive especially as there are some practical aspects within the strategy that we are developing that we can move on quickly.

As an aside for those of you that don’t know and might be interested February is LGBT History month which gives us a great opportunity to encourage youth workers to explore LGBT issues, homophobic bullying etc and look at ways in which they can challenge stereotypes, promote equality and work to prevent discrimination. There are a number of resources available as follows:-

For those based involved in school based youth work (although there are good links to other material) http://www.schools-out.org.uk/

For more general resources there is:- http://www.lgbthistorymonth.org.uk/resources/books.htm

And another site for more information:- No Outsiders