Internal Support in QCYF Protocol
This is the protocol describing the internal support structures in place for people working and organising in QueerCare Young Folk (QCYF).
This protocol should be reviewed and amended at least once every three months.
Last reviewed: 2nd February 2021 Next review: W/c 3rd May 2021
Contents
Zooms
= Structure
We have one zoom a week, following a monthly schedule of:
- Week 1: Care Debrief
- Week 2: General Meeting
- Week 3: Care Debrief
- Week 4: Skillshare
Care Debriefs =
QCYF fortnightly care debriefs are for people aged 13-19 only. They are facilitated by older teenagers with care experience.
Young people also have the option of attending general care debriefs with the rest of QC. In these debriefs, young people have the option of having their own breakout room. People from QCYF who attend general care debriefs will feed back anything relevant from QCYF care debriefs to the general ones, and vice versa.
General Meetings
On the second week of each month QCYF has a general meeting to discuss internal support (including safeguarding), admin, training & anything else that is not care-debrief-shaped. At the beginning of these there is an optional half hour slot that people can attend to play online games and quizzes.
On the fourth week of each month QCYF has a skillshare.
Skillshares can be on any topic. They can be led by someone in QCYF, someone aged 20+ in QC or someone external. Discussions in QCYF care debriefs and general meetings will inform what each skillshare will cover. Some examples of things skillshares can cover are:
- In-depth training on specific kinds of care or advocacy, eg. reality care or MCA advocacy.
- Managing care more generally, eg. balancing care and education.
- Political education, eg. learning about Mad Rights or Disability Justice movements.
Buddying
Self-to-Self Debriefs
self-to-self debriefs & adults buddying everyone doing care in qcyf will be strongly encouraged to regularly (eg. once a week, once a month, up to each individual) do a self-to-self debrief. we propose, if people aged 20+ are okay with it, that there should be an opt-in system where people aged 13-19 can be buddied with someone aged 20+ who does care in qc who can read over & make suggestions on people's self-to-self debriefs (this would probably be once a month or once a fortnight), to help wiith problem-solving & learning new skills. if a yp prefers, they can be buddied with an older/more experienced teenager rather than an adult. therapy it would be good to have the system for accessing therapy clearly written out (none of the people who were in this meeting understand it rip) so that yp can access this support if they need. anti-oppression/'code of conduct' we are going to write anti-oppression guidelines (like a 'code of conduct' but less 'do this because it is the rules' energy and more 'do this because it is the right thing to do' energy) for qcyf (spaces that are only people aged 13-19)(because as we have found in the training, it is useful to have things that everyone agrees to that we base how we interact with each other around). buddying we are going to keep using & regularly reviewing the buddy systems: general buddies everyone in qcyf will have a general buddy who is someone else in qcyf, using this form. this system will be reviewed in every general meeting. 'skillshare' buddies each buddy pair of new people will be buddied with an already established qcyf buddy pair, to help break down barriers to getting involved & to allow for better skillsharing. these will be based on the buddies people already have currently in the training. work buddies everyone doing care & advocacy will continue to be strongly encouraged to always work with buddies, or with no pii buddies where pii buddies are not possible. buddies for other work will be encouraged as well - action points should not be given to just one person, for example. some of us can probs work on developing the buddy protocol once the training is finished. adult care 'skillshare' buddies as set out in the (draft) safeguarding policies, people aged 18-19 who move to doing care for adults should be buddied with a buddy pair of people aged 20+ who already do care in qc who they can ask questions to & go to if they have any problems. similarly, people aged 18-19 doing care or advocacy for people aged 20+ should be buddied by someone at least a few years older who has experience in care work. it would be good to talk (maybe in a care debrief?) about what we need to do to make this happen, with the knowledge that by the end of the year there will be four people who already do care as qc who will be aged 18-19 (not including people who join after the training).
