seacoast outright

Working to ensure equal opportunity for all youth, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.

What happens at Seacoast Outright? (cont.)

After guidelines and intros, we usually break up into two smaller groups. A typical Friday night group will have anywhere from 20 – 40 youth in attendance. With numbers that high, we’ve found that smaller groups allow youth to talk more easily. Each small group will have two adult facilitators there to keep the conversation safe and moving.

Small Group Discussions

During the small group, youth choose the subjects to talk about. Since it’s a support group meeting, the facilitators try to keep the topics geared toward issues that youth are struggling with. These can range from coming out (to friends, family, at work, at school) to relationship issues, to dealing with homophobia in different areas of their lives. In addition to their struggles, youth also talk about their triumphs. The facilitators encourage youth to give feedback to each other – as adults who deal with adolescents; we’ve seen that first-hand that words and advice from peers are much more powerful than from adults. So we give youth every opportunity to support each other.

Resources

Facilitators also have information about lots of local resources, from glbt-friendly therapists and psychologists to health-care agencies and crisis support lines. We keep a wide range of accurate information on hand to provide to youth. We also have an on-site lending library. All of the books relate to gender identity and sexual orientation in some way. We’ve got novels (including young-adult novels), reference materials as well as history books.

Break and Announcements

After our small group sessions, we have a brief break where youth can play some air-hockey, foosball, pool or have a short conversation with facilitators. After break, we get back together for announcements of what’s going on locally and we usually wrap everything up right at 9:00 pm.

A note on safety

The Community Campus (where we hold meetings) is a chem-free and smoke-free environment. It is also served by the COAST Trolley transportation system. As a precautionary measure, Seacoast Outright youth may not enter the meeting space until there are at least two adult facilitators present. All adult facilitators have completed an extensive training program that includes a police background check. The Community Campus building closes promptly after our meetings get out. Please arrange for your youth to be picked up at 9:00 pm. We will not leave youth at the facility without a ride, but we will not provide transportation for youth. As an agency that resides in the Community Campus, we participate in the Safe Campus program.

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When a child comes out (cont.)

The parents at P-FLAG understand the many reactions you can have when your child comes out. They also understand that they are affected by homophobia, and that it is a struggle to get beyond it. When a child comes out of the closet, parents sometimes go into the closet to begin their own journey of acceptance and coming-out as parents of a glbt child. When a child develops the courage to reveal his or her sexual orientation to loved and trusted family members, those family members are sometimes not prepared. Sometimes family members withdraw their love, and a family tragedy begins.

P-FLAG is a wonderful organization committed to helping families stay together in loving relationships. P-FLAG sees Seacoast Outright as an integral part of that effort. There are state chapters of P-FLAG, like P-FLAG NH, as well as a national P-FLAG organization.

Seacoast NH P-FLAG meets on the first Tuesday of each month from 7-9 p.m. at the Stratham Community Church (Emory Lane, first right west of the Route 101 traffic circle).

For more information on NH P-FLAG, call (603) 772-3893, or (603) 772-5196.

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last updated: 08/09/2004
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