In Conversation with YPAS
On this week’s episode of the Comics Youth x Where are the Girlbands Safe Spaces podcast Ella talks to Paul Rooney and Nicholas Ball of YPAS about mental health, specific safe spaces for LGBT young people and why we need to advocate and protect the rights of Trans young people. YPAS, the Young Person’s Advisory Service, offers a wide range of support, wellbeing and therapeutic services for children, young people, and families in Liverpool. Serving a population of over 150,000 children and young people, YPAS helps Liverpool to become a safer space for the young people of Merseyside, helping young people and their families to address their mental health and well-being difficulties within a non-stigmatised and accessible environment.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Hello and welcome to the Where are the Girlbands x Comics Youth Safe Spaces podcast, a space for discussions with organisations and individuals who are creating safe spaces within the North West, with a focus on Merseyside.
Safe spaces are an important part of preserving mental health and wellbeing, especially for marginalised groups such as the Queer community who may find areas of their lives such as school or the workspace to be unsafe. It is also really important that we create safe spaces specifically centred around mental health. There is a serious underfunding of mental health services in the UK, impacting Merseyside and it’s people massively, meaning that any community based work that can be done around mental health can genuinely change and save lives. Today we will be talking to an organisation who do exactly this, providing safe spaces for young people to navigate their mental health, taking into consideration the specific needs of different marginalised identities.
YPAS, the Young Person’s Advisory Service is a Liverpool based organisation that offers a wide range of support, wellbeing and therapeutic services for children young people and families in Liverpool. Serving a population of over 150,000 children and young people, YPAS helps Liverpool to become a safer space for the young people of Merseyside, helping young people and their families to address their mental health and well-being difficulties.
YPAS also houses GYRO, a collection of youth groups (separated by age) for young people who identify themselves as: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual or Trans*, or who are Questioning their sexuality or gender identity (LGBTQ+). The group provides a safe space for Queer young people through afternoon/evening drop-ins where community can be found in the form of socialising, informal group activities and 1-2-1 support. Young people may refer themselves without the knowledge of their family or carers, making this a valuable resource for those who may not be able to or feel ready to come out to family about being LGBT*. GYRO provides both fun, wholesome community and practical support and information, helping people to come to grips with their identity, have a safe space to verbalise their journey and explore terminology within either a group or 1-2-1 setting.
The people who are in the interview:
· Nicholas Ball (he/him they/them) - Art Therapist
· Paul Rooney (he/him) - Information, Advice & Guidance (IAG) Worker (LGBTQ+) / IPTA Therapist. ]
Interview with YPAS:
Ella:
I’m here today with the fantastic Nicolas Ball and Paul Rooney from YPAS! I know that I’ve just done a little introduction for YPAS, but it would be lovely to hear sort of in your own words like what you do, what the organisation is, what your roles are. So Paul maybe if you’d like to go first?
Paul:
Yeah so I’ll just introduce myself first. Hi my name’s Paul Rooney and I’m one of the LGBTQ* information advice and guidance councillors at YPAS. At YPAS we do LOADS of different services and interventions for young people and once Nick’s introduced himself we’ll maybe go through a little bit more about what YPAS does.
Nick:
Yeah so I’m Nick and I’m an art psychotherapist at YPAS so yeah I work with 16-25s and I’ve been with YPAS for just coming up to a year now. So yeah it’s been quite an amazing journey actually it’s a really great organisation to work for so I think because when I was looking for jobs actually, safe spaces I suppose is something that’s really important to me personally. I identify as Queer an I’m neurodivergent as well so I think that was kind of something that was really important to me personally and I noticed actually through the application process YPAS was the only organisation I applied to that had a focus on anti-oppressive practice in the actual application process so yeah that’s kind of a bit about why I wanted to work at YPAS and then looking at the website and as Paul said looking at all the amazing like things that YPAS were doing and the groups and things like that. Yeah. (laughing)
Paul:
At YPAS as the Young Person’s Advisory Service we offer a range of wellbeing and therapeutic services for children and young people and families all around promoting positive mental health and wellbeing. There’s probably too many services for me to list every single thing that we do. But in terms of the service we have like a counselling therapeutic team and also a wellbeing service and a wellbeing team. So across that, me personally, I deliver in parts of our LGBTQ* support for children and young people and families, so that’s a mixture of 1-2-1 support with children and young people, and group support that offers safe spaces for young people which I know we’re going to talk a lot more about during this episode.
We offer other open access youth groups, our Sky group which is an open-access group for 16-25 year olds, and our Thrive group which is an open-access group for 11-16 year olds and also we have in our community hubs we have our fabulous Smarties groups which offers amazing safe spaces and activities for children and families of primary school age. There’s our parenting team which does loads of interventions with parents to help them support and work with their own children and young people. We have like Youth Justice workers, we have workers who do specific in domestic abuse therapy, workers who work with refugees, I did say I wasn’t going to list everything that we do but I feel like I’ve just started to do that. So yeah it’s a massive diverse range of services for across the board for children, young people and families of all ages.
Ella:
The work that you do is absolutely fantastic and I know a lot of our young people at Comics Youth sort of cross over and talk often about what a safe space YPAS is for them, I know myself and members of my family have accessed your services before, and the impact on young people in Merseyside is massive. You know like not only having therapeutic services but also like the social element of the groups that you provide and just the general wellbeing and community that’s found in the spaces that you give to the young people and their families.
Paul:
The reach is massive, you know we’ve support over 7200 young people last year. 1500 parents and carers were supported, delivering 23000 therapy sessions. You know like in cold numbers that doesn’t give a real picture of the, you know the diverse and the rich tapestry of that kind of work, but just in terms of numbers that’s the breadth of reach that we’re having across the City alone.
Ella:
It’s absolutely incredible and like the networks that are formed within that and the community ties that you form as an organisation are just incredible. It provides an unfounded amount of support for the young people and like you said such a diverse range of young people as well as families and carers and all that sort of stuff as well. And I think the theme across all of those different types of support is that they’re all like safe spaces that you provide to those people. And I guess my question to you about that is sort of how you create those safe spaces, and maybe some of the ways that you approach creating a safe space?
Nick:
Yeah, I think creating safe spaces for me is all about kind of listening I suppose and actually kind of centring the needs of young people and making changes to the organisation to cater for those needs and I think that;s something that YPAS is really really great at. Sort of from day one sort of on a really personal level but on an organisational level as well. So within sessions we collect data in terms of you know after every session we get feedback about how they found the actual session itself, you know we set goals with young people so it’s specifically their goals that they’re working towards - that’s within therapy or within the iag work as well. And we’ve got like CCC forms where they can leave feedback and I think we kind of stress that it’s really great to receive compliments but actually we really want to hear definitely is if there’s anywhere where we can improve. We really really want to hear that and I always really stress that with young people that we’re working with just because obviously their voices are what shapes the service and I think YPAS has changed so much over the years and I think something it’s really great at is constantly updating so when you’re kind of thinking about anti-oppressive practice it’s never done, it’s never something that’s kind of oh okay we’ve done that now it’s finished, it’s something that you’re constantly working on, you’re constantly trying to improve. So we’ve got our participation team, our young ambassadors so actually all the staff at YPAS are interviewed by a panel of young people so from that first stage you know, and that again was something that was really reassuring to me in applying at YPAS and that was a really great experience. So the young people’s voices are kind of central all the way through and I think that;s so important in creating safe spaces, is actually listening and then implementing changes based on what we’re being told.
Paul:
I would just say I agree with everything Nick says. (Laughing) I think to add to that though I think you know YPAS allows children young people and families to access a number of different services under one roof, and I think that kind of model allows children and families to build a relationship with a number of different professionals that might be supporting the family as a whole. I think accessing services under one roof in a non-clinical environment as well, I think that creates a really safe space for young people. Through own experience with working on youth groups, so for young people to be able to access mental health support via a youth group, rather than going to like a hospital or a GP I think young people naturally feel safer in those environments and the staff are skilled at building those relationships with young people in order for them to be safe. I think obviously we’ve got all our policy and procedures in place in terms of safeguarding in terms of making sure that we’re following local and national guidelines in terms of keeping children and young people and families safe. But I think it all starts from being able to build relationships with children and young people so that they trust you, they trust the services that they’re accessing, and that relationship building and that trust then allows children and young people and families to feel safe. And I think once they feel safe then they are able to talk about their problems. Able to talk about issues that are affecting, able to recognise when they might need support and able to access that support, and I thin again like having a diverse offer of support for children, young people and families enables ,more marginalised young people to know that this is a safe space for them. So by having specific groups for LGBT young people, specific groups for parents, specific groups for young people who feel isolated, who don’t feel confident, who don’t feel like their voices are heard, having all those spaces with different young people can access, feel safe and also access support when they need it. I think they’re vitally important in terms of creating safe spaces for young people and families.
Ella:
Yeah definitely and I think that’s something that really stands out to me about the services that you provide is that you have really specific services where young people and families can sort of meet people who are like them or who have shared similar experiences. I think something in particular is like GYRO and I know a lot of our young people at Comics Youth talk a lot about finding community in those spaces which, you know, when you’re at school even it can feel incredibly isolating and that there’s no one who sort of shares your experiences especially if you have other sort of marginalised areas of your identity. And I guess like to maybe hear you elaborate on why it’s so important to have those sort of like separate or specific spaces.
Paul:
I think like specifically for LGBT young people because that’s like the main project that I’m working on, it is vitally important to have those separate safe spaces for LGBT young people. There’s loads of research that tells us that the experiences of LGBT young people it consistently shows a picture of disadvantage, and often with Trans young people fearing a lot worse than their LGB Cisgender peers. Being a part of a minority, it brings certain you know stigma and stresses attached to it that result in a greater risk of mental health difficulties and mental health problems and that’s not through any deficit of minorities of children and young people, it’s linked to things like societal issues such as prejudice, invisibility, exclusion, being subjected to hate crime or violence and the impact that this has on a young person’s sense of self and a young person’s sense of safety within their own community. We’ve seen you know a dramatic increase in LGBT hate crime across the Liverpool City Region and nationally and I think that alone emphasises the importance of specific safe spaces for LGBT young people. They need to have spaces where they are free to be away from the fear or the reality of hatred and violence, and that’s like it feels like a very dramatic thing to say but it is the reality that LGBT young people and adults in an increasingly hostile environment. I think I’m probably going on a bit now, I’m on my soapbox but you know school is still a hostile environment for LGBT young people, and that’s not just me saying that, constantly our young people who are accessing our services tell us how difficult school can be for them not because they don’t like school, because they are subject to LGBT-phobia sometimes on a daily basis. And the impact that that has on mental health, on a sense of safety, on your ability just to get on with your daily life. So to have separate spaces is vital for LGBT young people to be able to negate and get away from other spaces that at the moment need a lot more work in order for them to be genuine safe spaces for young people. So until we can say that that there isn’t LGBT hate crime, and that young people are safe in school, then we need separate spaces for LGBT young people in order to access support and in order to feel safe.
Nick:
I think in many organisation and in many spaces actually unfortunately this work isn’t being done. So you know there’s not that work being put in to dismantle systems of oppression so actually you know until that is being done, as Paul kind of said, you know actually young people need a space where they can feel safe enough to share their experiences and connect with other young people that might be experiencing similar things. And unfortunately I suppose when you’re thinking about oppression and marginalisation it can be a lot of defences that come into play when people get challenged on that, and that can be projected out in all sorts of forms, that can kind of be projected out as anger. So when you’ve got these kind of safe spaces you know that can be kind of explored and kind of thought about in a different way and people can be challenged and there’s kind of boundaries in place and there’s a frame in place, and there’s ground rules which might be kind of decided upon by the young people, they basically decide what they want from that space and I think that’s really important and I think when young people have got that, when they have those safe spaces I think it can help them kind of build that sense of confidence. Yeah.
Paul:
And I wish, as an LGBT adult, I wish I had those spaces when I was an LGBT young person. And I think it would have helped me avoid some of the personal and developmental difficulties that I had as a young person, because if I’d have thought that there was a space for me to feel as though my identity was okay, then I think I would have, it would have taught me, I think I would have come out younger for a start (laughing) and it would have took me a lot less time to accept who I am if I’d have known that there are other people like me if there was other young people like me and I think safe spaces can create that sort of environment where young people know that they’re not on their own, they’re not alone and there’s nothing wrong with their identity and it’s the other places that need changing, it’s the other systems that need changing, it’s the oppression and other things that need changing, not that those young people need to change anything about themselves, they can come and be fully themselves in a safe space, whatever that means to them.
Ella:
Definitely I couldn’t agree more and I think yeah when I was in school as a young person that’s your primary source of reference as to what the world’s like and what other people your age are like and especially when it is like this very oppressive environment you know you are going to lose confidence and there are going to be these consequences to your mental health and your wellbeing so having those spaces is so important and you know I’ve seen first-hand that confidence building as well as that sense of community and you know the resources that you equip the young people with you know it’s just so fantastic and so needed. I think one of the things that really sort of stands out is that there isn’t any sort of stigma in those spaces and I loved what you said Paul that they can be whoever they are, whatever that looks like and there’s no need to try and condition yourself and try and mimic the other people in the spaces and try and fit in and all that sort of stuff. And yeah I’d love to hear a bit more about that about how you sort of work to let the young people know that this is that sort of space and that they don’t need to change themselves and that there is no stigma in the spaces that you provide.
Paul:
I think like from the very beginning of like you know either when a young person works, sorry walks through the door or from when a young person is referred for 1-2-1 support and then maybe moves on to accessing one of our groups, I think right from the very start we normalise everything that they’re experiencing, and I think there’s a massive stigma not only around mental health but there’s also a stigma attached to marginalised identities, whatever that might be, LGBT, person of colour, neurodiversity I could list a lot more but you know the stigma that can be attached to those identities, young people and families take that internally and for them to be able to come to a service that is non-stigmatised and is non-clinical, so they’re walking through a door and no-one is indicating that you’ve got a problem, there’s no problem with you, you might need support because of some of the difficulties that are going on in your life outside of you know your internal sense of self, so I think the model at YPAS in terms of before sort of like the youth information advice and counselling services all under one roof the whole purpose of that model is in order for children and young people to access mental health support in a non-stigmatised and a non-clinical environment. And I think how we support children young people and families, it’s driven by them as well, so in terms of being able to understand the needs of children young people and families and again normalise their experiences, I think it takes away some of the stigma that they’ve carried with them in terms of feeling as though there might be something wrong with struggling, or there might be something wrong with their identity, or their might be something wrong with asking for help. I think that like kind of all under one roof, open door kind of policy, being able to self-refer in, being able to walk into a drop in. We are saying we are here for you, and I think that in itself is non-stigmatising, I think that removes the stigma from being able to access support. I think being able to easily access a service, being able to easily access support, being able to self-refer and being able to access a diverse range of services that are targeted to your needs, that to me is non-stigmatising because it’s identifying that everyone should access support at a time of need, and it should be via self-referral when they need it.
Nick:
Yeah I really agree with that Paul and I think what you said about when we’re working as an organisation and holding kind of form and systems of oppression in mind and thinking how that might impact on young people can take some of that stigma away because it’s kind of placing the problem with society rather than placing the problem with the young people because actually it’s not their fault that they live within this society that actually isn’t working! So I think that can reduce that stigma as well just working in an organisation where we’re actually working towards anti-oppressive practice.
Ella:
I’d be interested to hear the feedback that you’ve got generally from obviously working with such a diverse range of young people and their families about perhaps what could be done in other spaces in Merseyside from maybe your own learning and how other sort of organisations or even just venues which sort of put themselves out as safe spaces can really work to create that non-stigmatised kind of environment for young people.
Paul:
I think the more spaces that we’re able to create where marginalised young people and families feel as though they have opportunities for their voices to be amplified, for them to be listened to and for their needs and their need for support to be taken seriously. I think…I think the more spaces that are able to do that, and the more spaces that are reaching out and advertising and promoting themselves as open access spaces for marginalised groups and marginalised individuals, the feedback that we get from young people is that being able to know that there’s a safe space that they can walk into or they can call up when they need that support is vitally important and I think there needs to be more spaces and more opportunities for young people and families to walk through a door and access quicker early help and sometimes immediate support. So I’m not saying that at YPAS all our support can be accessed immediately, but we do have support in terms of like drop-in groups, in terms of our wellbeing services where support can be accessed immediately if you’re walking in through the drop-in space or in very short periods of time if you’re being referred through for a wellbeing intervention and I think being able to have as many chances for people to access those kinds of spaces and those kinds of support, that’s what I think we need more of across the city. I think you know for YPAS we have three community hubs, we have one in the City Centre we have one in the North of Liverpool and one in the South of Liverpool and I think feedback not only from our children and young people and families but feedback nationally from organisations like Youth Access demonstrates hwo vitally important it is to have community hubs where children and young people can access support close to where they live, not support services that they need to travel miles and miles for, public transport is expensive! So to have support within communities I think is really important, and on that, YPAS is you know part of and supporting the national hashtag FundTheHubs campaign, which is a national campaign encouraging people to write to their local MPS for their MPS to then push the conservative government into putting more funding into ensuring people across the country have access to mental health support, youth service support, family support and a number of different support in their communities.
Nick:
I had a chat with our participation lead before this meeting just to kind of check in and one of the biggest things that she said the people that she’s working with are wanting in the city is visibility and representation and that’s just something that organisations are not doing well enough in. They want to see themselves represented within the workforce, within their advertising, I think that’s a really big thing when you’re kind of only seeing identities that don’t represent your own being reflected within organisations that does not create you know a feeling of safety, it doesn’t feel that you’re included. And that’s not a tokenistic thing either it shouldn’t be a tokenistic thing it should be a thing that’s really embedded in the organisation. I think organisations should be working much harder across the city to in a broad sense, I think organisations need to be doing a lot more to be listening to the voices of young people and trying to work to implement changes and as I said earlier as a sort of ongoing process, not as a one-time thing, but as something that’s constantly being worked on. So yeah.
Paul:
I’d just say yeah like what there needs to be more of. There needs to be more support for Trans young people, and particularly in services that advocate for Trans young people being able to access appropriate healthcare when they need it. You know we know there’s massive waiting lists for young people to be able to access the services that they need and the services that they require, there’s even a debate around you know whether Trans young people should be able to access those services at their age, and you know we need more services that are going to be advocating and protecting the rights of Trans young people.
Ella:
100% and I think those words are very important words and a good place for us to round up this interview. So thank you very much for taking the time to speak to us today, I think everything you’ve said has been so incredibly important and I think hopefully should give people a lot of insight about what needs to be done to create more safe spaces for our young people as well as introducing listeners out there who maybe haven’t heard about you about all of the incredible services that you provide. So thank you very much.
Paul:
I’d just like to give a shoutout to, if you want any more information on our services please check out our website YPAS.co.uk, follow us on social media, particularly GYRO on Instagram, GYRO on twitter where you will see lots of LGBT posts and I suppose last shoutout, I should have said it before but GYRO did win Community Organisation of the Year at the National Diversity Awards this year so a big shoutout to all the young people and all the staff of GYRO who made that a very very exciting reality and a privilege for acknowledging our services in that way. Thank you for having us! It’s been a pleasure.
A massive thank you again to the wonderful Nicolas Ball and Paul Rooney for taking the time to chat with me about all of the amazing, important things that YPAS do for the local community.
Our song of the week is Wings by Alex Adea, a Liverpool based musician whose music is filled with dreaminess and nostalgia. We particularly love Wings, a single which is both dreamy and melancholy as it speaks of the ups and downs of a relationship. This song will be a real comfort for all those confused in love, managing to authentically show the realities of a relationship falling apart from eating tonnes of chocolate to finding yourself longing for another life. We hope you enjoy.
Alex Adea - Wings
We are Ella and Eve from Where are the Girlbands working in collaboration with Comics Youth to bring you interviews with local organisations and individuals who create safe spaces. You can find us on Instagram as @wherearethegirlbands where we celebrate women in music and discuss how to make local music scenes more accessible for everyone through reviews, video series, interviews and events! You can find more about Comics Youth on Instagram at @comicsyouth or via the website comicsyouth.co.uk. Comics Youth is a youth led organisation that aims to empower youth across the Liverpool City Region to flourish from the margins of society, creating safe spaces where young people can harness their own narratives and find confidence within a creative community. Comics Youth provide a range of creative services designed to support and amplify the often diminished voices of young people, from zine creation to youth led publishing hubs and projects such as this podcast which highlights the voices of those working within our community to create safe spaces! Thanks for listening.
