We honour and value the voices of the LGBTQIA+ community
Ara Taiohi staff and Board wish to extend our aroha to our trans and non-binary youth. It’s our collective responsibility, that you grow up feeling safe, valued and like they belong in the places where they live, learn, connect, and access support.
To our Youth Work practitioners, we see you and acknowledge the work you do with rangatahi every day. We are here to continue supporting you and we tautoko you in your practice with young people to ensure their mauri and mana are upheld. As one of the Mana Taiohi principles outlines: we fuel the mauri, the inherent life spark of young people, supporting the development of their identity. If you’d like to revisit these principles:
To organisations that work with youth: we’d like to remind you of the Evaluate resource from our friends at Te Ngākau Kahukura. This is a great tool for your organisation to self-assess how well you are doing at supporting and including rainbow people in the services you provide. You can use this tool to reflect on what your organisation is doing well and what you could work on next.
You can access webinars from Te Ngākau Kahukura as a way to learn more, to show up for trans and non-binary people by learning about how to be respectful and supportive in big and small ways.
The Code of Ethics for youth workers is also an excellent resource that provides an agreed set of guidelines for youth workers in Aotearoa. This is to ensure that Youth Work is carried out in a safe, skilled, ethical manner, with specific clauses focused on diversity, equity, rights, and responsibilities. This highlights the importance of integrity in ethical youth work, in Aotearoa. We must remain accountable to ensure that the environments and communities that we are connected to are upholding such fundamental clauses when working with or assisting in the development of young people.
If you’re in need of support from a Supervisor, check out the directory here:
Additional resources: