Pride in the Youth Service

NCC youth service are always looking for ways to be a more inclusive service for our members and to show that we are allies with the LGBT + community, whilst educating and raising awareness of LGBT+ issues through youth work.

We have created several issue based art installations for Nottingham Pride in the past.

Two youth service flags were created by young people from across the county at youth centres, LGBT drop in sessions and Link clubs for young people with disabilities. These art pieces helped create discussions around LGBT + issues and protected characteristics as a whole, and what it means to be an ally and supporter of other’s rights. These were marched with at Nottingham Pride and displayed on the Youth Service stall.

Mavis the unicorn was created by young people from myplace Young People’s Centre Link club and Level One Club alongside the open door LGBT+ drop in group. They created a unicorn on wheels along with rainbow decorations and a pride themed mane – creating lots of positive discussion around pride being both a vehicle for change and a celebration of individuality . Staff and some young people marched with Mavis at Nottingham pride 2019 and drew lots of positive attention.

The Youth Service are taking steps within our centres too. After consulting with young people we now have 27 gender neutral toilets across our centres with more planned and have updated our membership forms to include preferred pronouns/preferred names as well as legal names and an open text box for young people to state their gender rather than box ticking.

If you have any further ideas how the Youth Service can make our provision more inclusive please send your ideas to Katie.whitby@nottscc.gov.uk