Overview
As a result of member feedback, and what we know from working within the youth mental health space, Youth Access set about implementing the Community of Practice for developing more racially responsive services.
The aims of the Community of Practice to deliver more racially responsive services were to:
- Establish a baseline of knowledge among participants
- Create an understanding of systemic, structural and institutional racism/racist practices
- Explore the intersectional nature of racism, class, gender etc
- Provide a brave space for open, honest and uncomfortable discussions
- Encourage peer learning and to amplify lived experience expert voices
- Provide a framework for implementing organisational and practice changes
Impact
Attendees were asked to complete brief pre and post-surveys to gather a ‘before and after’ picture of the session's impact and the learning achieved. Additionally, in June 2022 we conducted 6 semi-structured interviews with attendees from both session cohorts.
It is evident that the Community of Practice for developing more racially responsive services had a positive impact on attendees and helped them to become more racially aware and responsive as a result. You can find our short and long-term findings and an assessment of the impact attending the CoP sessions had on learners in the downloadable Community of Practice report below.
Interested?
The Community of Practice is a series of sessions which take place over the course of 5-weeks. Each session has a focused topic and aim to support attendees understand:
- Structural and systemic oppression,
- The specific needs of young people of colour, and the barriers they face when attempting to access support services, and
- Why there is a need for YIACS to implement more racially aware and responsive practices and services.
Sessions are designed, developed and facilitated by lived experience experts from both within and outside of the Youth Access network, to ensure the training is impartial, engaging and though-provoking.
If you’d like to register your interest for future Community of Practices courses, please let us know.
