Working with Rainbow Communities

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foreign [Music] thank you all for joining us here this evening my name is Megan spice and I’m one of the project leads for the This Is Us campaign as well as the Rainbow orangatahi project I’m also a member of the Rainbow Violence Prevention Network and I’m hosting tonight’s Corridor with my colleague Rose Archer welcome to some familiar names I can see some people that I know popping up in the chat and that’s really awesome to see that you could join us tonight and also Kilda to the people that I haven’t
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had a chance to meet yet we have a range of professionals joining us from across the Motu. We have people here from the different Ministries MSD, tipuna, a Human Rights Commission as well as a range of violence prevention organisations and people working in the front lines of mental health care and medical care as well as community leaders, university and secondary educators as well as cope up and Māori leaders and we’re really really excited to share some of the work that we’re doing in this space.
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We also welcome our panelists with Kev Nisha from Rape Prevention Education, Jelly from Intersex Aotearoa and Dando and Johan from Inside Out. kayodo we have shosh and Taran from iseign who will be in our sign interpreters for the evening so Kilda and harimai to all of you, it’s awesome to see you all here in this space. So before we get started I just want to quickly run through some some basic housekeeping just to let you all know this panel will be recorded. We did have over 150 registrations for this event
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though some people were unable to make it tonight so we’ll make the recording available on the RVPN website hopefully over the next coming days and also just to let you know that you can ask us questions in the chat box. It is moderated and once we’ve heard from all of the panelists we will have time for questions. One thing that I also really wanted to touch on this evening is the fact that we are talking about family and sexual violence prevention so I wanted to give you all a bit of a content warning – it
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might bring up something for you so please do look after your well-being and if you need further support you can reach out to outline help Auckland gender minorities or 1737. So how this evening is going to work is that Rose and I are going to give some background to our RVPN, the Rainbow Violence Prevention Network and the campaign itself this is us so after that our panelists will speak and then we’ll give an overview of a few of the different projects that RVPN is also working on and then we’re going to open
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it up for Q and A. So for those of you who are unfamiliar the Rainbow Violence Prevention Network or RVPN is a network of organisations working across both the family and sexual violence sectors as well as the Rainbow sector in Aotearoa and when we mean that when we use the term “Rainbow” what we mean by that is we represent those who are transgender non-binary. intersex takataboi Indigenous and non-heterosexual identities RVPN was formed by a coalition of Rainbow violence prevention practitioners and organisations in 2018
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to support each other and to collaborate and advance this Mahi to a nest to iwi caucus responded to this request and an informal Network began and we’ve been meeting monthly ever since then so I’ve over the past five years our network has grown and we’ve been receiving we’ve received some funding for various projects and that’s what you’re going to be hearing a little bit about tonight. Additionally with the funding that we have received we’ve been able to employ a part-time coordinator
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which has enabled the network to operate more efficiently. RVPN is working to address and prevent violence through the sharing of expertise developing initiatives together and also facilitating member organisations to support and learn from each other’s Mahi. We’re located within local communities and we provide provide a range of specialist support services to those within the Rainbow who are impacted by family and sexual violence. Our member organisations include Inside Out respect Ed Aotearoa
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Intersex Aotearoa, Rainbow youth gender minorities outline Ultra rape prevention education help Auckland Rainbow path and Wellington rape crisis where alteredo is leading Network solely committed to Rainbow Rainbow violence prevention. We’re also a multicultural network based on the principles of titiriti and intersectionality. I’m now going to hand you over to Rose who’s going to introduce herself and speak a little bit more into the This Is Us campaign who order Rose mentioned.
I’m the Project Lead for This
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Is Us campaign and so this is us it’s an awareness campaign the contract is held by outline who are a member of RVPN and run collaboratively by RVPN and so this project was funded by tipuna awanui from the violence prevention needs of diverse communities fund to address high rates of violence experience by Rainbow people in Aotearoa and so there have been many benefits of having access to and collaborating with the Rainbow Violence Prevention Network in developing this campaign and we’ve
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been able to work in consultation and collaboration with a really wide range of people who have both lived experience from a whole different range of people within the Rainbow and also people who have relevant professional expertise to the work that we’re doing as well really importantly and one issue that has defined the direction of the campaign is that we’ve been unfortunately unable to safely run a support seeking campaign at this time for Rainbow people who have experienced violence to seek support and
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this has been because unfortunately we don’t currently have capacity in Aotearoa to provide Rainbow safe support for the additional influx of support Seekers that we would see coming through with a campaign like that. We do have really great Rainbow organisations in Aotearoa we have really great mainstream organisations but they don’t necessarily have the Rainbow knowledge within those mainstream organisations to provide reliable support to Rainbow people so what we have been doing is
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the first leg to our campaign has been running a really strength-based campaign for the Rainbow community. We’ve been promoting healthy relationship behaviors that are really specifically speaking to Rainbow relationships and the Rainbow context. As well as that we also have run a series of billboards and radio ads in collaboration with Mediaworks and those have been really focused on activating allies around Rainbow experiences of violence
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but the most recent this but what we’re here talking to this evening is our third leg of the campaign and I’d say you know probably what Megan and I think of as being the most important strand to the campaign in terms of seeing systems change and so you know we’re launching this part of the campaign really with this event and it’s really about raising awareness within the violence and sorry the violence prevention and support sector and so what you can see up on your screen now is a few of the
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resources that we have developed as a part of the campaign that are to promote awareness for violence prevention and support sort of sector professionals. Just to raise that awareness and also to to be that first step for people in terms of upskilling and we will be distributing these materials through our mailing lists over the coming months but also you know we we wanted to we wanted to do this you know we wanted to bring a whole bunch of professionals from mainstream organisations together into a room
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and also to speak about some of the really really great work that is already happening within Rainbow Violence Prevention Network and the member organisations. So, you know, it’s a really we were thinking that this is an opportunity for the campaign just to complement the projects that are already happening within RVPN. So in particular just thinking about the fact that a really important part of the work that happens within RVPN is about creating materials and working in
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consultation to help the mainstream sector to upskill around Rainbow issues so this panel is an opportunity to hear about come about current and upcoming projects from within the RVPN network and to ask also more in-depth questions about this project these projects so we’re going to hear from our panelists about three projects that they’re going to go into depth about and then once we’ve heard from all of our panelists Megan and I are just gonna speak to a few additional projects and
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some of the other work happening within RVPN and the member organisations that that is there to UPS lift and support this work of eliminating family and sexual violence for Rainbow communities in Aotearoa I think Megan mentioned already you can ask questions at any time by submitting them in the Q and A. We may not have time to get to all of the questions but we’re going to do our best. So our first panelist today is Nisha through Silvan and we’re really excited for Nisha to
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speak to the best practice guidelines that are being led by rape prevention education with RVPN as this project is particularly focused on helping set to professional set up skill with their Rainbow practice you know in running the This Is Us campaign we have found that a systemic barrier to Rainbow violence prevention is that the support services are sometimes unsafe for Rainbow people and these guidelines are a tool that is being developed by the network to specifically help uplift the skill that
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we have in the practice that we have around this. So a bit more about Nisha. Nisha is a Malaysian-born Tamil. She has worked in various capacities in the violent in the family violence prevention and intervention sector with Shakti women’s Refuge one of the projects that Nisha worked on at Shakti was putting together a handbook for youth survivors and Family Violence working on this project she found her group of best friends as well as her passion for community centered research. Nisha loves to dream of gender abolition
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and her work in the sexual violence prevention sector is driven by her passion for gender justice.
Thank you so much for the introduction. Like Bruce said I’m working on the Rainbow competency guidelines project and we’re working to develop best practice guidelines for primary prevention workers working with Rainbow communities specifically on the issues of family and sexual violence. I think Rose said that I’m working under rape prevention education as well so I’m contracted by RPE web worked on
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and off since 2019 at RPE we deliver consent education in high schools to promote healthy relationships and we’re really grateful and hopeful for this project because as primary prevention workers we recognise that there’s a huge gap in understanding about the needs of Rainbow communities and developing our learning in this area is something that we in the sector need to commit to collectively. Our understandings of gender-based violence remain largely CIS
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normative which means that we see gender as male and female within the gender binary. It also remains largely heteronormative where we see violence as perpetrated by men onto women and the ongoing invisibility of Rainbow context allows for harm on the Rainbow community to continue laterally unquestioned. So the purpose of these guidelines is to set out knowledge and understanding of sexual and family violence dynamics to raise awareness in order to build safer social norms and a more deeply respectful culture for
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Rainbow individuals through an understanding of not just interpersonal violence but the systemic nature of violence as well and in these guidelines it’s also really important that we ground our practice as primary prevention workers in an understanding of violence from a Māori perspective and again recognise our role in New Zealand’s bicultural context this Māori perspective is one that sees colonisation as the root of all systems of Finance so what research does show is that research shows that violence occurs
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along the lines of power I think likely most of us in our sector are familiar with the power and control we have the power and control where it’s an infographic that shows us the tactics used by an abusive partner to gain power and control over their victim to maintain the abusive dynamic. The power and control wheel shows subtle and coercive behaviors over time such as the use of threats, put-downs, isolation tactics and all of these tactics allow for more severe enactments of violence such as physical and sexual
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violence. When I started this project as well I was really privileged to attend a talk on waitangi and the sexual violence sector and this talk that I attended it highlighted the ways that people marginalised under Colonial systems become more vulnerable to abuse through the use of power and control tactics. So if violence occurs along their lines of power and Colonial capitalism is an overarching system of power in New Zealand settler Colonial New Zealand it is this system through which
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violence is normalized in our systems so with an understanding of titular waitangi and the sexual violence sector we must understand how Colonial strategies work together in order for us to understand and truly appreciate the dynamics of gendered violence gender-based violence. Often in our sector when working in this space on gender-based violence issues we hold space for patriarchy and patriarchy’s role in gender-based violence however we often Overlook the ways that racism also shapes silence
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racism shapes how we see other people’s bodies it shapes how we view sex sexuality it shapes how we see who is deserving of care and who is deserving of access to care. Racism distorts our view of humanity. It causes some of us to be seen as more human than others. Anti-Blackness and anti-Indigeneity are direct causes of violence. It shapes how we see and interact with other people’s bodies. What I mean by that is that Colonial strategies like ableism, fatphobia, colourism, transphobia, homophobia, sexism,
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sex-negativity into phobia which refers to the prejudice against intersex people and their bodies influences who we see as a victim of ham it influences who becomes invisible and which enables enactments of violence and harm onto them. A big takeaway from me from this talk on tutility and in the sexual violence sector is that embracing decolonisation means that we acknowledge these Paths of an interlocking system rather than siloing these issues the talk that I attended it ended in a
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call for us to for us in the sector to work together and prioritize those who are multiply marginalised it also called for us to prioritize Collective healing as well as individual healing and to understand our Collective experiences of violence rather than individual experiences of violence in order to understand Collective experiences of how we really do need to understand structural violence I read a paper as part of my research for this project as well called what will it take to end gender-based
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violence. Ming Zoo who wrote this paper refissions the power and control wheel that we saw on the previous slide that shows interpersonal dynamics of violence to now show the nature of violence that’s embedded in New Zealand settler Colonial systems so in this paper it points to our tendency in the health and primary prevention sector to recognise harm as interpersonal violence perpetrated by men against women and domestic and intimate partnerships the reality is however that gender non-conforming
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people transgender and intersex people are also targets of gender-based violence and they also experience barriers to safety and support under the structure of our dominant gender system which leaves a large section of our Rainbow people invisibl. It really is important that we recognise gender-based violence as all forms of violence against all marginalised genders. This paper such a brilliant paper by the way it really highlights that what interpersonal violences are perhaps the most recognised in our sector
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It’s crucial that we recognise the more insidious forms of violence of the gender system that work alongside a political economic economy so I’ve referred to Colonial capitalism earlier in my presentation. Gender-based violence cannot be separated from structural violence. The gender division of labor and wage inequalities benefit and feminization of low-wage work and poverty border imperialism as well as the immigration system enables gender-based violence by creating a dynamic of dependence and
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intimate partnerships. Structural violence disproportionately affects marginalised genders. It disproportionately affects non-permanent residents. It disproportionately affects Indigenous peoples, poor people, as well in Aotearoa and New Zealand immigration statuses and not as non-permanent residents make people vulnerable to both domestic and structural violence through the immigration system. So Rainbow non-permanent residents often become trapped in abusive dynamics because they
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fear the risk of deportation because they really do not have the rights as citizens and they don’t have the same rights as citizens and permanent residents. Permanent residents leaving family and intimate partner violence situations as well can often lead or does lead to a reliance on work and income WINZ as state welfare and WINZ as part of a larger structure that manages and controls poor and unemployed people’s access to income to food to housing to everything that we need to lead a dignified life.
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The degradation of self-esteem that’s already experienced in an abusive relationships relationship is then furthered by the hoop-jumping processes at WINZ preventing people from accessing the support that they’re entitled to, ultimately deterring people from accessing safety. So what does research basically shows is that it argues that we must be critical in dismantling structural forms of violence to see an end to gender-based violence altogether. A structural violence that does affect
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Rainbow people, especially ones that that experience different aspects or like the intersectionalities to the identity, these structural violences affect threats to life. In my consultations with the Rainbow community I spoke to a person who escaped a killing upon her family finding out her sexual orientation. What they said was, that growing up Middle Eastern honor killings happened daily back home. The police didn’t take me seriously at first. Maybe if it was a white woman calling but as a brown
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woman I don’t fit the mold of a perfect victim. Did I need to call them screaming and crying on the phone for them to take me seriously? You can’t always assume that families are making empty threats. I convinced them of the threat that I was under. I was escorted out of my home and I got out okay but I can’t guarantee that for the next brown woman who comes after me. What this consultation demonstrated to me was the multiple ways that Rainbow individuals can experience fear and violence this person who I consulted
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with she expressed apprehension of calling the police in the first place for fear of her family members experiencing racism from the police. It then became a matter of life or death for her to phone the police and even then, she experienced the barrier of not being taken seriously as someone who is severely in harm’s way, she attributed this again to her race. So this story stresses to me the importance of recognizing the different aspects of a person’s identity that renders them vulnerable.
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Another theme that consistently came up in consultations was about the covert nature of violence that often goes unrecognized. A person I consulted with spoke about the confusing and disconcerting and frankly re-traumatizing experiences of care she says that she understands that service providers at the end of the day are human and they have we have our biases but she doesn’t often know if questions being asked are exactly related to her queerness or the discrimination that she faces is related
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to her queerness or being trans. Sometimes discrimination or the experience of discrimination is so subtle that’s confusing as to what’s happening in the first place. When accessing care she said that the assault that happened to me people assumed that it wasn’t bad because it was some guy grinding against me as a queer person we’re assumed to be inherently sexual and inherently weak because I have have spinal disalignment and I’m not a fast walker and because I like wearing bright
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makeup there’s a more covert way of reading the situation as if I’m someone asking for it. It’s really not cut-and-dry and passing as a woman which is another idea passing makes it confusing when my queerness applies because sometimes I’m read as a woman and sometimes I’m read as trans. Sometimes there’s a silent acknowledgment of my transphobia but if people say to prove it it becomes really hard to do that where people and especially trans people experience sexual violence in ways that
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aren’t recognised by the law and especially when the law currently only recognised rape as a penetrative act. When sexual violence is degrading is a degrading experience and can be experienced in all forms. The effects of all forms of violence are severe and especially when covert violence is unrecognized it can make the effect of experiencing it all the more severe. Rethinking these issues and developing a more complex and inclusive understanding of sexual violence in the context of structural and Colonial
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violences can make service provision all the more safer for those accessing care. Having harm and the effects of harm unrecognized is often a huge barrier for the Rainbow community to access care in the first place. When I did ask in my consultations with the community the Rainbow community about what people accessing care felt that that was deeply missing. A theme that came out over and over and over again was about service providers asking the right questions in the right way. So on this slide
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I have someone reported an experience of a service professional asking oh so you’re transgender the feedback is that if you’re gonna ask people about their identity make the purpose of the question clear and make it clear if the question is motivated against them and if it’s coming from a place of bias questions like invasive questions like this that don’t really have relevance to the reason why someone’s accessing care is actually a form of sexual harassment called curiosity sexual
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harassment. The intent behind inappropriate questions may not be to have however the effect of invasive questions about a person’s body about a person’s genitalia it is a form of sexual violence gendered minorities Aotearoa have made a free resource actually for clinicians working with trans patients and in the freezers they kind of highlight some of the broad basics of working with trans people such as don’t look at measure or touch a person’s body a person’s breasts
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a person’s genitalia without explaining the exact reason for the examination and if the examination is to take place to record it. If a patient is visiting a clinic for a reason that doesn’t relate to being trans there’s really no reason to bring it up and if a patient comes with a letter asking to prescribe HRT there’s no need for the patient to undergo the same form of questioning that got them the letter in the first place. Basically keep it professional don’t indulge in your
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curiosity either in your lines of questioning or in your medical practice. I did also ask about positive experiences what the person who I consulted with who escaped on a killings she also reported a positive experience where she tried to access the university’s emergency fund, she said she filled out the form struggling and behind on a lot of things. I was assigned to this really wonderful person. I contacted her on Monday we got on a Zoom by Tuesday and by Friday the money was in my account.
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She acknowledged that she understood from a brown girl to a brown girl that things are harder for us than what it might be for a Pacquiao woman who’s going through the same thing the university has historically been slept with students but this person who helped me she didn’t keep questioning me she asked the right questions and the money was in my account I was really proud to be at my University at this moment I didn’t need to be in constant communication with each other after the money came through
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but she did reach out and ask if I needed further support she asked if I needed a counselor she asked if I was considering further study and it really felt humanizing to speak to her. when I was going through threats again with my family she helped me from A to Z with how to apply for compassionate consideration and it’s the fact that she considered all of these things it’s the fact that needs were anticipated that the attentiveness the urgency and the compassion I felt really cared for.
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I think the takeaway from this is that we can’t underestimate how being professional in our work can make such a positive difference. When providing care for the Rainbow community it is really a matter of life or death. I asked about positive experiences of care as well and when a service provider is able to anticipate the care that a service user needs from the time of accessing care into the near future this saves the service user from future distressing situations. So the guidelines are due to be launched
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in July there may have been a slight delay with the cyclone and the floods sadly there should be a lot of things for lay the document really will support professionals working in a family and sexual violence prevention and intervention spaces and ensure the safety of our Rainbow community. The impact with the project is interested to reduce violence experienced by Rainbow peoples it’s to eliminate all forms of violence. If you do have any questions or if you have insights to contribute please
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feel free to send me an email you can also contact RPE for questions about the project.
Thank you so much for sharing this Mahi with us I’m really excited to see Rainbow guidelines being implemented in this space and I’m sure that many people in this room are also looking forward to engaging and implementing these guidelines in their own practice so next up I’d like to introduce our next panelist we welcome jelly o’shear from intersex Aotearoa and jelly is here representing the Mahi
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that they are doing in collaboration with gender minorities Aotearoa so the arc project focuses on assessment of family and sexual violence support services in alteredola to see how ready they are to work with transgender and intersex people so a little bit about jelly jelly shivay is the Project Lead and community manager for intersex Aotearoa as well as holding an executive role on the ipsa which is the intersex peer support Australia board jelly is a queer Parky heart intersex person living living on
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the lands of tear sorry I’ve marked us up Wellington so cute jelly take it away when you’re ready
thank you Megan thank you for the introduction [Music] thanks so much for having me tonight as Megan has already said I’m speaking on behalf of our collaborative project so I’m from intersex Ultra and I work with gender minorities Aotearoa and our project is called Arc stands for anti-violence resource center a little bit about us so gender minorities Aotearoa is a national
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wrap-around support charity and Public Health organisation which supports thousands of transgender people every year with ***a author of nades and nt6*** Aotearoa as an intersex-led non-profit organisation that provides affirmation advocacy and referral for intersex people and their whanau and we are both member orgs of the Rainbow Violence Prevention Network and this project is kindly funded to date by the Tyndall Foundation as well. We want to cultivate improved collaborative networks and scope the
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current landscape of service provision including identifying knowledge gaps and limitations of what is available. We want to develop trust between trans non-binary takatapui and intersex people with the services and agencies available so they can get the care and support they need. We are seeking to provide pathways and resources to increase the capacity and upskilling of the current violence prevention and response services to include our community’s experiences. This would consist of developing a
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workforce of those who are part of trans non-binary takatapui and intersex communities and we are building relationships with service providers and agencies to ensure that there is a community-led and trauma-informed approach developing of best practice. So I wanted to just deep dive for a moment about what we know coming into this project firstly about trans and non-binary experiences so as well as expert professional knowledge by those working at gender minorities from the thousands of disclosures they
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get when providing their services. There’s also documented in the 2018 survey counting ourselves which gave the insight into the health and well-being of trans and non-binary people and Aotearoa and New Zealand so this did provide data on sexual violence and some abusive relationship behaviors specifically related to trans and non-binary binary communities and you’ll see in the top-right the survey found that trans women trans men and non-binary participants or reported High rates of experiencing
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sexual violence as 32 percent of the population. It also demonstrated that the majority of participants did not immediately seek help and when they did they were more likely to speak with friends or in some cases with mental health practitioners than to call or attend a violent support service and I think it’s important to note that only five percent of all those who answered yes to this related question went to the police. There’s parallels for what we know about intersex experiences.
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Unfortunately there is limited data on the prevalence of violence against and intersex individuals compared to the rest of the population but again, as expert professionals in this area we receive many disclosures through our organisation the lack of data is partly due to the fact that intersex people are often for one not recognised as a distinct population in research results and studies to begin with. There are also challenges and both the definition and identifying of intersex individuals and that’s
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externally but also within our population. Some studies have suggest though that intersex people may be at a higher risk of experiencing violence and discrimination than the gender general population. A study within the Journal Of Interpersonal Violence in 2018 found the intersex participants reported higher levels of physical and sexual violence compared to their non-intersex participants another study published in the Journal of Sex Research in 2019 found that intersex participants reported higher
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levels of discrimination and psychological distress than non-intersex participants. Clearly more research is needed to better understand the experiences of intersex individuals and to develop effective interventions to prevent violence and discrimination so the way that we have been developing our landscape of understanding is through running three surveys last year: two community-focused surveys, so one both for trans and intersex communities, to tell us
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about their experiences when seeking support from sexual and family violence services and also we asked Rainbow NGOs and other agencies as well including the police and it’s important to know that we did not ask about their specific experiences of violence but but how their experience of seeking support was. The third survey was focused on accessing sexual violence and family violence support services across the country to see how ready they are to work with transgender and intersex people.
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The overall aim of the surveys was to get a general view of how supportive the services have been and what gaps exist. No particular service was analysed just a general overview of services on the whole and I wanted to take a moment to talk about and Nisha has spoken to this too and already but to talk about the analysis of violence. So. within the Arc project but also with the Rainbow Violence Prevention Network we understand violence as an intersectional experience that includes
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systems that uphold Colonial and white supremacist determinants including such things as endosexism and trans-misogyny within also our violence prevention and support services so these terms can either be new concepts or blind spots for people working across the sector and or it can be part of a discriminary framework that’s used within gender-based mythologies that rely on those gender binaries already discussed. So just to break down those big words, endosexism and trans-misogyny. Endosexism is a term used to describe
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discrimination and prejudice towards individuals whose bodies conform to typical male or female sex characteristics as opposed to those who have intersex variations so that’s inherent in all the systems that we use. As much as trans-misogyny can be really apparent through the combination of not just misogyny or the hatred of woman but with the inclusion of transphobia, so ongoing I’m just highlighting a few parts of this project. It’s a multi-faceted project but right now we’re analysing
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the survey data and writing the reports on the findings and we’re really excited to publish those over the next few months as well as that two seperate literature reviews that address the research available of the experiences of violence and the broader sectors’ response to both the trans and intersex communities nationally. But we also have had to look internationally because there is so little data and research available in Aotearoa and we want to use these findings both from the survey and the literature
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reviews to help us build community-specific resources that will empower and activate change and form clearer direction and address immediate knowledge gaps, limitations and needs. So how we dream of activating and implementing our project is through community development. Our dream would be that we would get resourced to build our own capacity throughout like intersex LED and translate organisations and so we’re upskilling our own communities to do and lead the support work that needs to happen.
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We also want to plug-in prevention programs that can be run by and for trans and non-binary intersex people and of course Outreach making sure that we’re disseminating all this amazing kind of revolutionary information into public campaigns, development of community specific violence prevention activities, healthy relationship programs and stopping violence programs – there’s so much more that I could share but I’d love if anyone had any need to reach out or want to find more about how they can engage with the
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resources we’re developing please contact us at our emails and check out the amazing resources on both our websites.Kia OraJohan.
Thank you so much Jelly as you’ve said implementing systemic solutions to violence starts with getting a clear understanding of the problems that we’re facing and you know for those of us who are familiar with the importance of data in in violence prevention work and we’ll we’ll be able to see how crucial the art project is to our continued strategy
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to eliminating family and sexual violence for transgender and intersex people in Aotearoa and I’m going to pass over to Megan to intro the next panelists.
Thank you so I’m sure that many of us in the room know that are really another important pillar of violence prevention is upskilling people and in particular young people with skills for healthy and respectful relationships so our next panelists are Dando Morgan and Johan Kettle from Inside Out, Dando, Johan and myself have been developing a respectful
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relationships program for Rainbow rangatahi and this is a collaborative project held by Inside Out and Rainbow U so a little bit about Dando. Dando is a pākehā queer of Portuguese English and black American descent. They were born and raised in Highbury and live in the Sunny Taranaki with their spouse child and sibling. They’re a registered social worker with a background in sexual violence primary prevention queer youth work policy and community development and Dando is a passionate activist and artist currently working in a few
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different roles at Inside Out. Johan was raised by the lands of kaitahu and natife and ototahi. They are LGBT and a proud baby Auntie. They are an Udi of the olatiel Waka and whakapapa to the mighty Wanganui AWA Tia as well as being of settler pākehā descent they are interested in transformative Justice approaches to violence prevention that center and pay attention to ongoing colonisation and our responsibilities to our communities including lands, waters and skies. They offer this kaupapa from a
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therapeutic background currently as a therapist at NZPC sex workers collective of Aotearoa and they are in their final leap towards a masters of counseling. So Kia Ora and welcome Rose I will just ask you please to get up the slides as well thank you before they start ourselves cool and Megan thanks so much for that introduction tinakoto katoa just want to meet you to all of you watching tonight wish we could see your beautiful faces but it’s wonderful to share in the soon wairua and in the collective
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memorial of ending family and sexual violence within our communities and specifically tonight speaking to ending that within our Rainbow community. You might be here as a member of the Rainbow community Kia Ora. You might be here as someone who wants to learn how to be in greater solidarity with us so welcome we meet you and the stories and your experiences and the care that has brought you along tonight. So we’re going to have a corridor with you about our contribution to this Mahi and kaupapa and we’ve had
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the absolute privilege of spending the last 10 months developing a program made for Rainbow rangatahi by our community it’s a program that acknowledges the personal interpersonal and systematic factors that bring about harmful ways of relating as well as a program that is aspirational and providing seeds of possibility for community healing community accountability and transformation. So I’ll pass the raka over to my wonderful colleague dendo powder.
Thank you Curry can I get the next slide please Rose
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Okay so the first question that we should probably discuss is what is our project addressing right so unfortunately we know that Rainbow people are experiencing greater rates of physical and sexual victimization than our Norm Rainbow peers for this reason we’re attempting to help reduce these rates of Violence by supporting Rainbow dangatahi to develop skills and knowledge that they can use to identify when they might be experiencing harm but also when they might be doing harm as well as how to
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seek help and create safety and some personal violence decreases the money and well-being of everyone involved we argue that there are some key ways that we can help rangatahi to build safer more respectful connections through this program. For example building strong community connections, increasing non-violent communication skills, evaluating our biases and fostering behavioral change. Next slide, please. So we were asked the question why Rainbow-specific relationships education and the answer simple it’s really
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important that rangatahi can participate in community spaces where we can see ourselves reflected in the material and the content and the conversation it’s also important that these spaces are fit for purpose that they’re designed by diverse communities with diverse communities experiences and realities in mind unfortunately the harm that Rainbow people experience is often unique to our communities and it’s not always spoken about or known about a mainstream services we recognise that having a
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Rainbow-specific place to go is key to supporting rangatahi to explore the unique challenges that affect our communities in a safe way whether held with care and love. These spaces for learning must be positive they must be strengths focused so that rangatahi can feel safe to analyze information as well as share and develop knowledge so that they can be in respectful relationships with both themselves as well as other people around them back to you Curry. Next slide please, Rose. Cool, so now we’re going to kind of glide
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together through our process of how we’ve developed so our hope is to offer a little bit of insight and transparency and the first place and the best place to always start with this is the foundation that is **titidity** or Waitangi so if you could go to the next slide please. This is the foundational document that we’re being led and guided by and are in continual material accountability to fertility has led us towards these core principles that you see before you
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including our program being informed by the Colonial scholarship and a de-Colonial politic has us making sure that we mona rangatahi voices and that our program is by community and for community as outlines and trade. So it’s all good you know saying this but how have we walked the talk so it’s important that we’re explicit that this program is not a decolonizing program or a big Colonial program it’s been formed by decolonial scholarship and Colonial politic. What does that
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mean? It means that we’re centering the impacts of ongoing colonisation within the context of the settler colonial state of New Zealand and by doing so take a critical stance on how colonisation continues to interrupt and invade Rainbow relationships and how it might recruit Us in ardangatahi into harmful ways of being thinking and doing it requires us to pay attention to actually what relationship is and more than that what reciprocity and reciprocal relationships are not just between individuals but more importantly
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as part of an interconnected into interdependent communities that are responsible to the fenua and the waters that we live on and are lucky to live on it demands that we recognise the pervasiveness of white supremacy both within and outside of our Rainbow community and how we ensure this program reflects not just the parquarium experience but is embracing and accountable to the many communities within our community another cool principle is safaka Mana rangatahi voices this is really key to Inside Out guadal and Rainbow youth as
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many of you will probably be aware of and what do we mean by this it means that we actually take seriously the mātauranga and knowledge that rangitahi do hold often and so many of our sessions with that you’ll hear more about soon you know adults like oh they don’t understand what white supremacy is or colonisation is and it’s like no they do they live it every single day and they’re navigating violence in their communities and sometimes in their interpersonal relationships and there’s
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wisdom there and so their voices are not data to extract from but wisdom that we can learn from and it’s our job to listen so how did we bring these principles to life we conducted community consultation over many months speaking with community members who also belong to the Rainbow community as well as many other communities. We’re a diverse bunch. This was in the aspiration of making sure the program is culturally responsive inclusive representative as well as being accountable to the great
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Rainbow web of relations so to anyone in the room who we have consulted with your contributions to the program have been so invaluable and have shaped and reshaped our Direction and and what has been included and also excluded from the workshops it’s our hope that we’ll continue to consult with our community as the program continues to evolve so what else did we do we formed a rangatahi advisory made up of some awesome young people from across the mortu these rangatahi bought with them
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their different experiences perspectives to inform our programs the program it’s important to note is not co-designed however we shared our power in sharing the decision making and the corridor that we shared has directly impacted the content creation also our poo was led by tifiki and the teachings of **tifiki** that were generously shared with to iwi and Pacquiao through fyodo’s pity so Mahi to her and her work and tifiki invited us over six months into its eight dimensions and into this
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tentacular beautiful experimental Corridor and we’ve collated all these amazing stories invercargill that will be available soon for you too read if you’re interested in also we’ve developed some Open Access research report to just give more of that transparency it also includes a community consultation report so if you are interested please get in touch and we can provide that more in-depth information pass it back to dendo thank you Curry next slide please Rose so next slide after that as well sorry
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I so let’s have a look at the heart of the project right next slide please thank you Carl back one thank you so the key themes of the program so far so throughout our consultation process particularly with arangetahi four key themes emerged these key themes from the Culpeper of each of the sessions of our five-week program and of course these are consent communication connection and community Care so consent was consistently one of the most important issues that were raised by rangatahi during our sessions and
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they spoke of their desire to develop greater skills and knowledge about ways of communicating respectfully they’re acknowledged their Ambitions for connection with both themselves and with others and their desire to access Collective care and community Support really speaking about wanting to move away from individualized self-care into Collective care so in terms of developing the program each week are participating will come along and they will share watch Play and Learn about different aspects of each of these
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four KOA Papa consultation made it clear that we must be really intentional with how we deliver this information so that means utilizing a combination of different written visual sensory and practical activities to help generate and integrate that knowledge in order to sustain and support knowledge integration we’re also going to Pilot a little reflective Journal that encourages rangatahi privately in their own time between sessions to reflect on the things that they’ve learned about the reason for this is because while
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this program is absolutely a primary prevention program evidence has also shown us that just talking about signs of violence and keeping safe doesn’t necessarily generate enduring changes in Behavior for this reason we’ve decided to take a more generative approach focusing on the greatest systematic and systemic factors that underpin the harm that our communities experience as well as looking to tools to overcome these factors building meaningful sustaining connections and relationships
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in spite of those barriers the ambition is that utilizing this capacity for critical thinking and reflection will enable this breakdown of those ideas so it is our ambition our very bold ambition perhaps to be able to deliver both the program both online as well as ATI Nana and the intention of that is to increase the accessibility of the program furangatahi across the entire multi hopefully that means that it will make it some more young people so if I could get the next slide again
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so the question was posed to us you know how do we think that the whanau who have attended tonight can support the kaupapa the first thing that came to my mind when this question was posed was to get in touch you know we’re standing here talking about how important it is to us to build community and to build connection but also we have to do that mahitu so if you have questions get in touch if you want to access the resources get in touch but also if you just want to build a relationship get in touch like email
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I’m here I’m here for that kind of thing too secondly another thing that you can do is share our Mahi with people whether it be heading out into the community and telling your colleagues or your staff or yorangatahi or their whanau or your whanau every word of mouth piece of information about this money helps to get it to our kids who otherwise might not know about it and lastly but definitely not least help Mahi like ours and like all of our programs and projects from tonight help us to get funding
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our communities require resourcing in order to be able to keep doing the money that we’re doing if you like the sound of the money that we’re up to feel free to ask questions and to share information and to help us get funding if you can Kilda so before we wrap up tonight we the wonderful Johan and I thought that it could be really nice to share this little quote from one of our amazing rangatahi from the collective document about resisting transphobia posts like this so I think that Joy is the first thing that
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comes to mind having an Unapologetic aroha for myself and allowing myself to feel Joy and to have fun it feels like there’s such a burden of responsibility on queer youth especially trans youth to have to always defend ourselves and argue that they should exist and it’s kind of like we’re also just teenagers like we’re kids right it feels like sometimes the most like political thing that I can be doing is going and riding my bike down the street and having a good time and listening to
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some good Tunes like there are so many people who want to see me suffer and if I don’t that’s like the biggest way I can stick it to them thank you for coming along Dakota thank you so much dendo and Johan for sharing your mahu with us really really awesome work and and beautiful words at the end there especially and and we know that a lot of you are here today are mainstream service providers and I just really want to like reiterate that last point that Dando was making as well around
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you know we wanted to share this work with you that we’re doing so that you can also go and share that with the Rainbow people who you’re working with and also you know as alongside the work that we’re sharing that is about supporting mainstream providers with with your own professional development so we’re going to share a few more projects just really quickly and then we will launch into our q a at the at the end first one that we wanted to to highlight people
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kind of complements the the project that was just being spoken about which is gender minorities I have a healthy relationship program and it’s a course for healthy relationship skills for transgender people specifically and as with the rangutaki program you can support this project by just knowing about it and sharing it with any transgender people who you think might have an interest we also GMA also have a supporting transgender people online course and this course is a good starting
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point to learn how to better care to learn how to be better care providers toward transient towards transgender people sorry getting a bit tongue-tied and you know again with this you can support this Mahi by engaging with it by taking the course or sharing it with any colleagues who might be interested cool so some of you might be listening in tonight wondering okay so what do I need to do what can I organize organisation do to better develop our our Professional Knowledge and our skills so one of the
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ways that you can do that is by contacting Inside Out who was a member organisation of RVPN they offer training and resources for supporting Rainbow communities so that’s a really really good way to to upskill and to learn more and to create some more safety for your professional development in relation to working with Rainbow people and communities and also with the campaign Rose do you just want to change the slide also obviously outline is a national service that offers confidential and free support to Rainbow
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Specialists to Rainbow communities and they also have a 0800 number which we showed right at the beginning of this corridor and lastly with the This Is Us campaign we have developed lots of extra resources posters pamphlets easy to read easily accessible information we’re more than happy to send hard copies to people if they would like to have them in their organisations and workplaces for communities to to access so please just get in touch with us if you would like that they’re also
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available on the RVPN website and lastly sign up sign up to the pledge and find out more keep up to date with what is happening within the RVPN network and that’s that’s all of the resources that we would like to share with you tonight so what we’re going to do now is we’re going to open up the the stage for answering questions Rose I’ll hand it back over to you Toyota thank you Megan so the first question that we’ve had it was from early on during the
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panel discussion and and it says I really agree with your analysis but what does this mean for my day-to-day practice and I think that this was asked at an early stage but just wanting to to throw that to all of our panelists and just asking for for mainstream violence prevention and support service practitioners what does it mean what does your project mean for their day-to-day practice and I’ll start with Nisha first if that’s all good I I really like the question it’s a
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really good question applying Theory to practice really is something that I think a lot about I think that with an understanding of systems and the ways that violence is enabled by systems of Oppression I think even appreciating the context of service users accessing the services the empathy that can be extended to them something that came up in my consultations as well I asked what what would you ask of a service user reading this document and the person said the person I’m
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Consulting word said it’s really simple but be kind the kindness could just simply come from recognizing the different ways that the experience violence the different ways that a lot of us experience violence the unique ways that our communities and we experience violence and validating that experience Toyota awesome thank you so much Nisha I’d like to also throw this question to Dando just further to what Nisha was saying as well like something that came to my mind about how we can actually utilize
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this awareness in our day-to-day practice is to firstly recognise that which I mean to be fair most about are actually probably already really thinking about but the ways in which our internal biases manifest in our practice being really critical about that and I think as well taking up opportunities to really dig into professional development about these like the issues we’re talking about tonight so something that comes up for me is that if we are here in this space and we’re
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like wow I didn’t realize that Rainbow communities were affected by different forms of violence and I don’t really know what that means making like for my personal practice on the front line that would look like me going oh I need to learn about that and reaching out to to really dig into what that means how does it look different what are the unique forms of violence that Rainbow people experience what are the unique forms of violence that Rainbow people might inflict upon one another like these are
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questions that could even just asking ourselves could just like Elevate our practice so much so thank you for letting me also add to that thank you so much Dando jelly would you like to also add add an answer into that question thank you sure I like this question as well I think I’m I can warrant that this is probably you know at times overwhelming information and seems you know for me I’m still learning and I’m part of this community language it’s changing all the times how
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people are expressing themselves as as you know gladly taking up more space and so I think to not get overwhelmed to the point of a shutdown response and just to really meet the person that’s in front of you in that moment and then the other side of that could be you could have real passion for this area and that enthusiasm could mean that you start you sort of treating the person that’s in front of you as like a test subject or you know a you go off script has has already
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been referenced and asked inappropriate questions or use that person as a learning tool so I reckon like a cool thing could be find other practitioners that are interested in upscaling and you know practice with each other it’s it’s it’s unfair that you’re having to do this independently and it’s not built into your you know best practice Professional Standards within your organisation and the broader sector but we’re working on it and I think get support from
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people that are in a similar position as you and if you if there are safe safe people to test some of your theories with you know to make sure that you’re honoring their expertise in a way that’s appropriate and at the right time Kilda thank you so much Shelley so our next question was just a specific one for Nisha they ask can you please remind me who developed that resource and said thank you and I believe that that was in reference to the the oh I’m about to answer the question
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uh to the GMA resource that you mentioned early on in your slides the the wheel so that was developed by gender minorities Acero is that correct or the will that shows structural forms of power and control oh that was the paper is called what will it take to end gender-based violence it’s open source actually so if you just Google what will it take to end gender-based Violence by mensu m-e-n-g-a-z-h-u one word it should come out maybe we can link it as a resource as well we can link it through in the um
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through the our webpage for the campaign and the GMA resource for clinicians working with trans patients we can link that as well if it wasn’t if the question was referring to that okay thank you so we had another question come through in terms of the structure of support services do the panelists have any thoughts on how they could or should look in the future given right now it is mostly mainstream offering Rainbow services within them so does anyone have any thoughts that they would like to
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share on that question kind of I’m aware that I have lots of thoughts about things like this so I I am aware of the fact that at the moment mainstream Services you know as we will are kind of provisioning services to Rainbow communities out of almost there’s gaps there’s gaps and our service provision for our communities because of resourcing and funding and things like that my blue skies as a colleague of mine would say would be for Rainbow communities to be really well resourced
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and be able to deliver this kind of Mahi for our own communities I guess in future if that’s not a possibility having Rainbow people employed in services to deliver those services within mainstream services to Rainbow people is hugely beneficial it can be like ideally we would have awesome allies that we can receive great top-notch care from but that’s not always the case and so having access to our Rainbow workers social workers counselors therapists whatever would just be so beneficial and
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having dedicated roles for that kind of my hair as well so instead of taking a Rainbow employee who’s already in a service say not in a Rainbow-specific role and did relegating all the Rainbow clients to them that’s not quite unnecessarily helpful but having someone who’s dedicated in that role could be could be one way to navigate it if we can’t completely resource Rainbow communities to do their Mahi as well those are just my thoughts my beautiful colleagues might have other thoughts as
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well Toyota thank you so much standard so I think we’ve got time for probably just one more question before we wrap up at 7 30. so we’ve been asked how would you recommend bringing the resources that We’ve mentioned to clients so we’ve mentioned enough a number of education programs and various different sorts of support that Rainbow clients can draw on and how how can practitioners bring these resources up with clients in a way that is safe and respectful
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so I’m gonna I might see Dando or Johan would either of you have a comment to make on this because your program is specifically one that we do want to definitely see more practitioners bringing to the attention of thank you dendo I’m sorry I’m always full of thoughts so I guess firstly it depends on the context right so as someone who primarily works with young people if rangatahi has come out to me or shared information with me about them being queer Rainbow takapaku whatever language they’re using
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then I would definitely be inclined to just be really forward and say hey I heard of this thing if you’re interested in it here’s some information Kate’s pipe that might not be for all of the rangatahu and the service as well some young people might be uncomfortable about that in general and one of the best ways to know is to gently ask the framing that you could use for this is I heard of this XYZ initiative is that something you would like to hear about and then you can go off of their lead another thing
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that you could do is depending on the nature of your relationship with someone you could just offer them the information about it and leave that open whether it’s if it’s a physical resource you could place it on a table and go I thought you might like to read this or something to that effect and leave it with them it’s never going to be a one-size-fits-all approach unfortunately because what might be really nice for one young person could be quite uncomfortable for another
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and at that point we have to kind of rely on our professional judgment and our our relationship and our knowledge of the person to gauge what’s going to be safe and respectful but those are some suggestions from me go to Denver I just want to add a little bit more to that I think completely agree with everything that you’ve just said but additionally do does your organisation have resources out where people are coming in where members of the community are coming in and making appointments do you have
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you know do you have that visibility in your establishment that signals to Rainbow communities hey maybe they’ve got some Rainbow folks working here or maybe they’ve got a program so doing really simple things like that is also another way to kind of bridge that Gap as well cuta Yoda thank you moving so we will it’s almost 7 30 now so we’re just gonna move into closing out thank you all very very much for joining us thank you to our panelists and our sign interpreters as everyone has said
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if you do have further questions you can reach out to the network itself to myself or Rose or any of the panelists we will be sending out the recording obviously but it would be great to to hear from all of you.