LGB Alliance starts Helpline for teens and young adults

[IwantToRetire]

This isn't a specifically for women, lesbians but aimed at young people who are feeling confused or bullied whilst trying to work out who they are. Thought some on FWR might have siblings, children, who might find this useful.

Q: Why did you select the age range 13 – 24?

Adolescence is often a time of turmoil and change and teenagers can struggle as they begin to think about who they are.

Whilst acting on any sense of same-sex attraction may be years away, the worries and fears associated with the idea that you are ‘different’ often start early.

Young adults, on the other hand, may be more settled in their sexual orientation but struggling with a new world of relationships.

Whilst the support would be framed differently and always in an age appropriate manner, the underlying message from our volunteers will be meaningful to all teens and young adults – it’s always fine to be you.

Q: How is it different to any other service?

Like other helplines, we’ll be there to support teens and young adults facing a whole host of issues – ranging from coming out and bullying to break-ups and family alienation.

What makes us unique is that the service won’t suggest to a teenage girl who feels different, because she prefers short hair and playing sport, that she might really be a boy. And it won’t tell a teenage boy who is being bullied for being effeminate that maybe he’s really a girl.

Many young adults report being shamed for their lesbian, gay or bisexual relationships by those who would say that same-sex attraction is in some way bigoted. We start from the premise that homosexuality is perfectly natural.

There is much more info about safeguarding and how volunteers were recruited on this web page https://lgballiance.org.uk/our-helpline-is-open/

For me the age range makes sense. This is talking to teens and young adults. No 13 year olds are not 'the same' as 24 year olds, but then they are 'not the same' as 16 & 17 year olds who are over the age of consent but still under 18. Where should the line be drawn?

I appreciate the concerns that people have, but as has been repeatedly stated, these young people are not together. They are being listened to individually. Unlike for example the young people being invited to various in-person LGBT+ groups for 11-18 year olds, a wildly more diverse age range IMO. And that is the kind of landscape that the LGBA is operating in. I still think that many younger teens will feel they are more likely to be 'treated seriously' for want of a better phrase if they are using a service that appears to treat them as 'young people' rather than children. And I use 'appears to' deliberately. It's what happens when they make the call that is important, but you have to get them there in the first place.

As @Slothtoes says, there is a desperate need for an uncaptured service & I hope young people are signposted there.

The first point of safeguarding (in my very rough understanding) is to be open to considering issues raised and criticism. Various people are raising the issue of the age range, so it seems worth looking at.

It's complicated in this instance because many people are going to attack LGBA in bad faith; nevertheless, the issue can still be looked at objectively to see if improvements can be made.

By the by, LGBTYS are for children and adults - age 13-25.

https://lgbtyouth.org.uk/

(For those asking why people keep bringing up other organisations - I can't speak for others, but this is not my field, I'm not qualified in safeguarding, so I'm looking at other roughly similar orgs to see how they do it.)

(Which isn't to say I think LGBA should follow their lead. LGBTYS are currently under police investigation for alleged abuse, of course - LGBA should aim to be a great deal better!)

I understand that minors and adults generally need separate services for safeguarding reasons, but I'm not sure it therefore follows that any service that is for teens and young adults is automatically a safeguarding risk (although we should definitely expect evidence of this and not expect a free pass to any organisation).

I can see that on the surface it might seem like a good idea to separate the service into two distinctly different lines but that the reality of delivering that could be prohibitively complicated and costly (especially for an organisation that has been pushed to the brink of extinction by Mermaids vexatious litigation).

Would the two lines have two separate teams of volunteers? Would they be in a different office? I'm really struggling to see how that would be helpful. Would they need different supervisors? How much separation is necessary? What specifically are we trying to achieve? When we say'its for safeguarding' , what do we mean specifically in this context?

For instance, teachers in a secondary school might have one lesson with 11/12 year olds and the next with 17/18 year olds. They are trained to deal with both. How would a phone line be different?

The lines would need to have 2 different numbers and different marketing. There would then likely be a bunch of people who ring the wrong number and have to be transferred to the other line. How would that work in practice?

I'm struggling to see what problem would it solve, apart from 'the look of the thing'.

Maybe someone who works with children and knows more can elaborate.

I had the impression that it's as much for the children as for the volunteers/staff.

So they will be accessing a service they understand is for under 18s. It's different than accessing a service for 'young people' that goes up to 24.

It's to do with reinforcing the understanding that children are children.

So yes, it is in a way about the 'look of the thing', which is part of the subtle but important culture of an organisation.

The ‘look of the thing’ needs to be balanced against the effectiveness of the thing. Is a 14 year old more likely to access a service if they think it’s for children or if they think it’s for young people? I imagine that LGBA have done some research and they haven’t just plucked this age range out of thin air. I know there’s been criticism of showing examples of organisations using similar age ranges, but presumably they do it because it reaches the people it needs to reach.

This. Very different from the LGBTQ+ 'support' socials being held for 13-25 year olds, where accompanying adults have to say goodbye to their children at the door and it's not clear who their children/ young adults are socialising with or who the event is being supervised by.

I think a lot of those concerned are flying a false flag.

By the age of 13 there will be some young LGB individuals who are all too aware of the fact that they are same-sex attracted. I was. Are people seriously suggesting they have to wait until they're 16 in order to talk to a trained, security-checked adult about their concerns?

Are people seriously suggesting they have to wait until they're 16 in order to talk to a trained, security-checked adult about their concerns?

I think people are suggesting LGBA offer a service for children that is separate from a service for adults.

OK but those posters may or may not be good faith and they may or may not really understand the delivery of youth services- that’s a massive drain of resources for a small charity to have to staff two separate services, when there’s already huge grey areas and crossovers between the needs and issues of the two age groups.

They also don’t want to offer a service to ‘adults’, just to young adults and below.

There’s no need for a separation of services in an individualised telephone service where there are a well trained staff with a clear understanding of the subject matter, safeguarding and legal issues. Do those posters think Brook should be shut down, and reopened as separate organisations, for the same reason?

For me, the issue with grouping together 13-24yos as 'young people' contributes to the blurring of boundaries between children and adults. It is, as @DrNickedMaCorpus said, about "the look of the thing".

I don't have an issue with providing a helpline for teenagers at all, but I do think language matters as it shapes thinking and behaviour. If it said "teens and young people" it would appeal to the same group but would be less fuzzy.

I don't think that just because other orgs have similar age ranges that this means it's acceptable without question. We know that safeguarding has been compromised already across a wide range of services and provisions, so any new service providers who are aware of that should be setting an example and modelling better practices.

Transgender people are homophobic? What, all of them? Some of them? A few of them? What's that opinion based on?

This was probably properly dealt with on one of the pages I don't have time to read, but for clarity...

Homosexuality is all about the primacy of sexed bodies. We know that sex is biological and immutable. We are same-sex attracted. Gender doesn't come into it.

Gender ideology elevates gender identity above sex. Transwomen (people who are actually male) argue that because they identify as women they are lesbians if they seek sexual relationships with women. Men with beards and penises are saying they are lesbians. Women with vaginas are saying they are gay men. Most lesbians and gay men (and a lot of straight people too) understand how homophobic this is. It denies same-sex attraction.

Exactly this. And I really doubt holding Brook up as an example is the best idea.

How will can anyone on a phone line — possibly communicating via text messages — be certain how old anyone is?

Yes, it's important to see how skewed and damaged the landscape is in this area, by (in my view) dangerous and risky organisations like Mermaids, LGBTYS, etc.

Boundaries have been made porous and shifting and uncertain, thanks to years of 'queer theory', and it's now up to sensible adults to rebuild a landscape based on a safeguarding first approach. This does seem to be LGBA's approach, fwiw, from reading their post.

Children are not 'young adults and below', and I think that phrase illustrates the issue quite well.

I didn't bother responding to that comment, but I will note the conflation of 'genderism' with 'transgender people'. I don't know if that's out of a kneejerk response or bad faith.

Well, sure, but it's about declaring boundaries, and the social contract.

I will note the conflation of 'genderism' with 'transgender people'. I don't know if that's out of a kneejerk response or bad faith.
Nice try at deflection. What do TransGender people subscribe to if not Genderism?

I note you ignore the main point:
Transwomen (people who are actually male) argue that because they identify as women they are lesbians if they seek sexual relationships with women. Men with beards and penises are saying they are lesbians. Women with vaginas are saying they are gay men. Most lesbians and gay men (and a lot of straight people too) understand how homophobic this is. It denies same-sex attraction.

I don't think it's right to assume that having that age range, with appropriate safeguarding policies etc for under 18s and over 18s, is poor practice.

I said I'd stop referencing Teenage Cancer Trust but it's relevant here: they have done research that shows that 13-18 year olds with cancer do better when cohorted with up to 24 year olds, than they do when cohorted in paediatric services with 0-13 year olds. Cohorting teenagers and young adults together, in and of itself, is not a sign of poor practice or of lack of safeguarding.

And LGBA are working 1-1, the clients aren't mixing or interacting with each other, so I really don't see why this is a red flag, unless you think that staff can only have the skills to work with either over 18 or under 18s, and aren't able to tailor what they do appropriately. Or you think that staff can only properly safeguard under 18s if they work solely with under 18s and never with older young people. I don't think that's true.

It doesn’t mean if you don’t like the politics of an organisation that they have necessarily got the age range and service delivery model wrong.
I thought the discussion from some of the posters on this thread would be a bit more nuanced in understanding of the issues of service delivery to children and young people after all the discussion this key topic has had on this board.

What the fuck? Of course LGB kids exist! Sexual attraction doesn't begin on your 18th birthday!

So we can never have helplines for under 18s? Like Child line for instance, they've no way of verifying a users age any more than LGBA have, but I've not seen any calls that Childline shouldn't exist for that reason.

Where, precisely, does it say they will be discussing sex with children?

Abeona, I meant the other poster conflated the two. I didn't mean you. That other poster responded to my post saying that genderism is inherently transphobic.

And yes, I completely agree, genderism denies same-sex attraction - my point was that genderism is based on homophobic ideas.

It doesn't offer support to this group for the same reason it doesn't offer support to children who are diabetic, or Deaf, or have lost a parent (unless, of course, they are also LGB)- that is not its remit.

It's called the LGB Alliance, not the LGBT alliance.

Those of us that not only worked with young people but started small organisations who worked exclusively with 14-24 in different cohorts, on premises outside of mainstream school, with those with disabilities, learning difficulties and behavioural problems and who was the sole owner and responsible person know very well how hard it is and how careful you have to be.

Not in good faith indeed.