Das Team

We are a multi-professional team with various professional competencies in the areas of open child and youth work, gender and queer studies, educational sciences, systemic consulting, process support, anti-discrimination and political education work. We have a wide range of practical experience in queer youth work (Dortmund, Siegen) with the main topics: Offers for all young queers, girl*work, trans* specific youth work, racism-critical youth work, sexual education, parental work, low-threshold counseling.
What we have in common is that we are fully committed to the interests of young queers.

Contact the entire team:info@queere-jugendfachstelle.nrw(pronoun: nin): (pronoun: none): (pronoun: none):Project “This can do queer youth work”: (pronoun: they):

Q_munity project team:qmunity@queere-jugendfachstelle.nrwBojana Matuzovic (pronoun: they): (pronoun: she/dey):
Trans*sensitive project: (pronoun: nin or none): (pronoun: he)

OUR ATTITUDE

For young queers

We are partisan with queer young people. We take their realities of life and youth work needs seriously and stand up for their interests.

Youth participation

Don't talk about young queers without young queers! We ensure the participation and participation of LGBTIQ* young people: as part of the Youth Network Queer Youth NRW and through our Youth Advisory Board. We also strive to incorporate the expertise of young people in specialist discourses.

Discrimination critical

The empirically proven experiences of discrimination based on gender and/or sexual identity outside the norms of bisexuality and heterosexuality form the starting point of our work. In order to be able to understand and accompany the living environments of all queer young people, an intersectional perspective is also essential, i.e. looking at the entanglements and interplay of other forms of discrimination. Queer young people experience trans*, inter*, lesbian*, gay, bi and queer hostility and, depending on their positioning, racism, sexism, discrimination based on disabilities and physicality as well as on the basis of socio-economic status and access to education.

Empowerment and safer spaces

In addition to sensitized regulatory structures for youth work, LGBTIQ* young people need and demand strengthening spaces specifically from and for queers. We are committed to the fact that queer young people have the right to experience free time, peer contacts and finding identity without worrying about queer hostility as well as to low-threshold advice and support, for example on coming out and dealing with discrimination. We are also in favour of the importance and necessity of spaces of protection and empowerment, including within open queer youth work: i.e. safer spaces for young queer bi_POC's, trans* and non-binary young people and queer girls*.

For the professional recognition of queer youth work

LGBTIQ* youth work has only a short history and is rooted in particular in the self-organization and self-help of queer people. This is reflected in the current often precarious funding of full-time positions in projects. We see queer youth work as a complex field of work in which educational professionals provide open youth work, low-threshold psychosocial counseling, empowerment and educational work. As a specialist body, we are committed to the recognition of queer youth work and to expanding specialist discourse and professional networking in this regard.

Project specific and resource-oriented consulting

The offers of queer youth work in NRW are extremely diverse and supported: They range from municipal youth centers with daily opening hours to weekly meetings with community or general youth work providers to monthly activities such as theme cafés in rural areas. Our advice is always specifically focused on the respective resources of the local offering — always with a focus on providing support in establishing, maintaining and expanding offers for young queers everywhere in NRW that are as strengthening and long-term as possible.

Protection concepts and sexual education go hand in hand

“For self-determination, against border crossings” — we also commit ourselves to this motto of the protection concept of our youth network in our work. We are committed to establishing protection concepts to prevent sexualized violence in queer youth work services and are committed to an exchange of expertise that takes into account the special needs and vulnerabilities of LGBTIQ* young people. As one of these needs, we see offers of sexpositive-strengthening and borderline sexual education/sex education specifically for the target group of young queers.

Self-reflective, learning, connected

We are constantly learning: in particular from and with the youth network and queer local work specialists, but also through continuing education and further professional networking. (Self) reflection and development are important to us: We are happy to receive critical and positive feedback on our work.

The team of the department