Young People share their views on barriers to accessing services
In Summer 2023, we commissioned the Ru-ok? - a Brighton and Hove Young Persons Drug and Alcohol Team (based with the Adolescent Service) - to engage lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer (or sometimes questioning), intersex, asexual, and other young people (LGBTQIA+).
We asked them to gather their views about how substance misuse services, sexual health services and therapeutic support services could better engage this community. Surveys of young people within the city identified LGBTQIA+ young people under the age of 18 often felt there are barriers to accessing support from support services such as drug and alcohol services. Ru-OK? ran sessions with young people who offered suggestions and ideas for how professionals within our team and in other services could seek to engage people from this community.
A total of twelve group sessions took place in 2023 and 2024 in which the Ru-ok? Participations Worker, a Social Worker based in the Adolescent Service and a Youth Justice Worker engaged young people in co-producing a guide that seeks to help services better engage and serve LGBTQ young people.
Although the aim of the sessions were to focus on substance misuse services, sexual health services and support services, it became clear when listening to the feedback of the young people attending that they want professionals to understand the wider experiences of LGBTQ people; including their views on how other services (such as mental health services) have supported them. The young people attending these sessions felt this needed to be explored within the sessions.
"It's so important to have spaces where we listen to people's actual experiences. The group feels like a place where I not only get to share my own but to hear others in my community and connect to them. I hope that through our shared experiences, we can change services for the better. I'm grateful for the passion of other young people and the professionals working these services, and it's seeing that passion that makes me believe change is possible.”
What has happened so far?
Ru-ok? and the young people who took part have created a suite of videos (which are being finalised) and a guide for people who work with children and young people to help them best support.
The young people involved met with the Head of Service, Adolescent Service and the Corporate Director for Families, Children & Learning Services at Brighton & Hove City Council to discuss their work and their hopes for how the outputs could be used.
The outputs were also discussed at the city’s adolescent board. We are aware that the police are interested in the outputs and pending further legal advice from the Council, we will explore how we these materials might be used to inform social work practice, education advisors and trainee medical staff, with plans to approach our local universities.
“This has been a really valuable piece of work and the learning we have received from the young people will enable us to continue to develop services that better meet the needs of young LGBT people.”
