Highlights of the Year

ShoutOut Volunteers

This year we had 25 active volunteers who delivered workshops in secondary schools across Ireland. Our wonderful volunteers delivered workshops in a brand new format with videos on Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, and Intersex Identity developed by our volunteer subcommittee – more on that on the next page!

This year our volunteers spoke to some 7,600 students in classrooms all across the country, answering their questions and guiding conversations on allyship, queer identity, and the particular struggles faced by LGBTQ+ youth in schools. Our volunteers also worked to support young people in other environments including youth groups, drama projects, and other community settings. We’re immensely grateful for their shared work in delivering tailored content to meet the needs of LGBTQ+ young people and their allies.

Our workshops are still, at their heart, all about storytelling and education, and our volunteers come from all walks of life and parts of the LGBTQ+ community to tell their stories of growing up, coming out, and finding joy in who they are.

ShoutOut is nothing without our volunteers – we’re so grateful to every volunteer who delivered a workshop this year, and especially to those new volunteers from all across the country who signed up to be a part of our virtual workshops. In June, for the first time in 3 years, we had the chance to be together in person for Dublin LGBTQ+ Pride, and then again in July for Dublin’s biggest ever Trans and Intersex Pride!

Volunteer Testimonials

I’ve had an excellent experience volunteering with ShoutOut. The staff have been supportive and welcoming from the first night of training onwards. It has been a wonderful way to practice active allyship, while also developing my own facilitation skills. Seeing students engage in the material and respond with empathy and understanding has been so heartening.

It is important for me to stay connected (in touch) with what is happening in the youth educational environment, it gives us an insight to what is going on that sometimes these children’s parents don’t even get. It’s a privilege and gifted opportunity to make an impact on the overriding attitudes to our community. The environment set by the people who run ShoutOut is a caring, supportive one that embraces all shades of Queer, I love feeling at home here.

Steering Committee

ShoutOut’s work is supported by our voluntary Steering Committee of longtime volunteers and experts who support on specific projects as well as content development and school workshops. The Steering Committee is vital to ShoutOut’s work and we couldn’t run without them!

Projects developed by members of the Steering Committee this year included the ShoutOut, ListenIn podcast (led by Lisa Nic An Bhreithimh), the Parents & Guardians Guide (developed by Domhnaill Harkin), and expert input to our volunteer subcommittee on redeveloping the school workshop content.

Special thank you to longtime volunteer and Steering Committee member Spencer Christie, who this year finishes up with ShoutOut to move to Canada.

2021—22 ShoutOut Steering Committee Members:

Clara Barry, Conn McCarrick, Domhnaill Harkin, Ed O’Brien Hogan, Lisa Nic An Bhreithimh, Spencer Christie

ShoutOut Volunteer Subcommittee

Our volunteers represent a range of identities, experiences, and backgrounds, coming together with a shared mission to improve the lives of LGBTQ+ young people in schools and communities. As such they are uniquely positioned to drive and reshape the material we deliver in school workshops.

Last summer, we began working with a subcommittee of experienced volunteers to review and reshape the material for our virtual school workshops. Supported by the Community Foundation’s Adapt & Respond programme under the Comic Relief fund, the committee developed a series of videos and supporting documents explaining LGBTQ+ identities and terminology in detail for our online workshops. Animated by Thomas Heising, the videos clearly and helpfully explain topics including gender identity, sexual orientation, intersex identity, and LGBTQ+ history for a secondary school audience. These videos will be an asset for years to come.

Special thanks to our wonderful volunteer subcommittee for their expertise, lived experience, and generosity in developing this material, and for their dedication in this work alongside their time spent delivering school workshops and supporting ShoutOut’s mission.

2021—22 ShoutOut Volunteer Subcommittee Members: David McGovern, Aimée Doyle, Mark

Holland, Stephen Turner, Clara Barry, Roisin Sheridan, Kat Clinch, Jacqui Wantuch, Ciaran Gaffney

The videos have really helped me in facilitating the workshops. I would never be able to explain such complex topics in such a succinct and clear way. I think the format is really wonderful too – the cartoons, music are really engaging and I think resonate with a young audience in a better way than if we were just speaking. Compared to workshops I have done without video, we get through the topics a lot more efficiently with the new wonderful videos! – Brian Donnelly, 2022

Workshops Completed July 2021 — July 2022

Schools Workplace Capacity Building Community

Total

Community 1.3%

Capacity Building 13.8%

Workplace 17.3% Schools67.6%

Number of Workshops

2012 — 2022

Year

Number of Workshops

2012 10 2012/13 33 2013/14 57 2014/15 97 2015/16 152 2016/17 171

Year Number of Workshops

2017/18 378 2018/19 462 2019/20 383 2020/21 390 2021/22 376

500

400

300

200

100

0

’11/12 ’12/13 ’13/14 ’14/15 ’15/16 ’16/17 ’17/18 ’18/19 ’19/20 ’20/21 ’21/22

In the face of fluctuating COVID-19 case numbers, school workshops remained virtual throughout 2021 and in early 2022. This allowed us to continue consistently delivering workshops as the situation around the pandemic developed over the past year.

Virtual workshops gave us the opportunity to reach a range of schools across Ireland and reduced risk to volunteers and students alike. They also allowed us to engage volunteers who may not have been in a position to deliver workshops in-person for various reasons.

This year ShoutOut’s team and volunteers met with 7,590 students across 254 workshops in classrooms all across the country, answering their questions and guiding conversations on allyship, queer identity, and the particular struggles faced by LGBTQ+ youth in schools. Our volunteers also worked to support young people in other environments including youth groups, drama projects, and other settings.

In summer 2021, our volunteer subcommittee worked with videographer Thomas Heising to redevelop our school workshop content for a virtual setting, directing a number of animated videos on sexual orientation, gender identity, and intersex identities. The subcommittee adapted workshop content and approach to ensure students continued to receive LGBTQ+ inclusive education which was up-to-date, accurate, and inclusive of a range of identities.

We continued to engage students through in-classroom activities and a pre-workshop questionnaire which helped us understand the nature of LGBTQ+ inclusion at their school.

2,238 students completed the questionnaire. The results are below.

How do people speak about LGBTQ+ issues in your school?

(2238 Responses)

They speak positively about LGBTQ+ issues in my school They never speak about LGBTQ+ issues in my school They speak negatively about LGBTQ+ issues in my school Unsure

Teachers My Classmates Other Students in the School

Check the boxes for the identities you want to learn more about.

(1617 Responses)

27.4% Lesbian 26.1% Gay 33.3% Bisexual 38.8% Transgender 52.5% Non-Binary 54.7% Queer 65.9% Intersex 58.7% Asexual 55.5% Pansexual 443 443 539 628

Your school has invited ShoutOut to give your class a workshop about LGBTQ+ issues. Do you think this workshop will be beneficial for your class?

(2238 Responses)

59.5 Yes, I do not think this workshop will be beneficial for my class 10 No, I do not think this workshop will be beneficial for my class 30.5 Unsure

Do you think your school is a supportive place for LGBTQ+ students?

(2228 Responses)

70.1 Yes, my school is supportive 6.3 No, my school is not supportive 23.6 Unsure 849 885

1065

949 898

Do you consider yourself an LGBTQ+ Ally?

(2183 Responses)

58.4 Yes 18.3 I’m not sure 14.3 No, I’m not an ally 4.5 I am LGBTQ+ 4.4 Other

Some great questions were submitted via the questionnaire which we had a chance to answer in our workshop. Please note, to protect the anonymity of the students we have presented only questions which contain no identifying information.

– Why do people speak badly about the

LGBTQIA+ community?

– I struggle a lot to remember things like pronouns and names. Do you have any advice or help on how to apologise or ways to help?

– How do we solve some people’s misunderstandings about bisexuality?

– What does gender fluid mean?

– How do you survive having to wear a skirt in your school uniform when it goes against your gender expression?

– How do you have a relationship with someone if you are asexual, dating an allosexual?

– What’s the best way to deal with everyday homophobia e. g. “That’s so gay” and the f slur being used in everyday conversation?

– What should I do if I think someone is part of the LGBTQIA+ community but they haven’t told me?

– Why don’t we learn about LGBTQ sex education?

– How can the school be better?

We are hugely grateful to the teachers and school staff who made our virtual workshops possible and facilitated these conversations with students.

254 7,590

We delivered 254 workshops We spoke directly to 7,590 students

70 25

We worked with 70 schools across 15 counties 25 volunteers made this possible!

Midlands LGBT Partnership

This year, ShoutOut worked with Midlands LGBT to create a workshop-delivery partnership – expanding our services to schools, students, and teachers in the Midlands region and training volunteers and staff from Midlands LGBT.

Teacher Testimonials:

Many thanks to all involved. The workshops were so valuable to the students and very educational, delivered in a professional and matter of fact way.

Thanks so much for such a great workshop. Students gained a lot from it and it got the conversation started in our school.

Special thanks to our incredible volunteers and to our outgoing Education Coordinator, Eli Downham Jones, for their hard work in making these workshops possible.

Proud Schools Programme

ShoutOut’s newly developed Proud Schools Programme is specially designed to bring schools on a step by step journey towards greater acceptance and inclusion of LGBTI+ students, staff and the wider community. This is a brilliant opportunity for schools to work closely with the team at ShoutOut to become a safer, more welcoming environment where LGBTI+ students and staff can flourish and achieve their full potential.

Through funding from the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth under the National LGBTI+ Strategy, we have structured our programme to meet the criteria of a Quality Assurance Framework and addressed the 4 pillars of Policy, Training, Visibility, and Support.

Our 8 Step Proud Schools Programme is tailored to guide schools through the journey of creating LGBTI+ inclusive policies, lesson plans, daily work practices and a positive school environment for LGBTI+ students and staff.

ShoutOut will work with schools to establish a Proud Schools Committee with an appointed Coordinator, and identify other key staff as Proud School Leaders. Working together through the 8 Steps we will help schools:

– Complete our unique online training for all staff, senior leadership and management – Conduct surveys and consultations with staff, students and other school stakeholders – Review data to create a Self-Evaluation Report – Identify a wide range of suitable actions based on the needs identified in the Self-Evaluation Report – Design an effective, evidence based Proud Schools Action Plan (School Improvement Plan) – Implement the actions agreed in the school’s action plan – Review school policies to ensure they safeguard and support

LGBTI+ Students – Celebrate achievements and moments of change throughout the school year

Schools will also have access to our Proud Schools templates, samples of best practice, policy guides, tailor made resources, lesson plans, ‘how to’ guides, information handbooks and much more.

This year we are launching a pilot of the Proud Schools Programme, working with a number of diverse post-primary schools: rural and urban, large and small, mixed and single-sex, religious patronage and community colleges. We will be engaging in significant consultation with schools so that we can make any necessary changes and ensure that we have the best possible programme to roll out nationally the following year.