Gender Diversity Policy
Big Brothers Big Sisters seeks to celebrate diversity and provide a safe place for all. To achieve this, the organisation commits to ensuring it will respond wherever it finds its young people are marginalised or excluded. Working with gender diverse people respectfully and with inclusion can improve the outcomes for everyone as Big Brothers Big Sisters works with openness and greater self-reflection.
Being Gender Diverse can be defined as feeling you do not identify as your assigned gender, or as any gender at all. Young people who are gender diverse face barriers to access the services they need.
Big Brothers Big Sisters will respond to Gender Diversity in a legitimate and genuine way, recognising Gender Diversity as part of who we are. Our programme commits to intentionally providing inclusive, affirming, and safe mentoring services to gender diverse youth and mentors. A person's gender identity will be respectfully affirmed and when Big Brothers Big Sisters completes risk assessment, it will use a Gender Diversity lens to assess the safety of group events and buildings.
However, Big Brothers Big Sisters acknowledges it is not a specialist support service for Gender Diverse young people, so Big Brothers Big Sisters will identify other supports for Gender Diverse young people as required.
Holding sensitive information
When young people inform an adult of their Gender Diversity, it is vital to recognise the sensitivity of this information. Staff should be cautious about sharing the information, who they are sharing it with and what they information they share.
Language
Big Brothers Big Sisters will monitor the language it uses for all aspects of its promotions, systems and forms, to ensure it is welcoming and inclusive of those who are gender diverse. Options to be added for everyone to be able to identify as gender diverse.
Inclusive language such as ‘bigs’ and ‘littles’ will be preferred to ‘big brothers’ and ‘big sisters’ in forms, marketing and alike. Likewise, use of ‘parents,’ ‘guardians’ and caregivers’ is preferred to ‘mothers’ and ‘fathers’. However, individuals will have the right to identify how they want to be referred to.
Big Brothers Big Sisters will be guided by the young people with respect to how they identify themselves, their preferred pronouns/name and the significance their Gender Diversity has in their life and on their well-being.
Supporting a gender diverse young person
Mentors Role
To know how to respond to a young person expression of their Gender Diversity.
To support and affirm the young person’s sense of who they are.
Be flexible as they grow and develop. Their gender is often not fixed at this point, they could shift around in their identity during your time with them.
To be a safe person for them to talk to about their journey with their identity.
Supervisors Role
Where a young person informs of their Gender Diversity, utilise both internal and external supports as appropriate.
To support and affirm the Young Person by being a source of support who is free of judgement. To be a connection between the Young Person and the appropriate Rainbow supports where required.
To support and affirm the Mentor by being a source of information for the Mentor so they can better understand their young person’s identity and Gender Diversity. To be a safe place for them to express and share any feelings around their Young Person’s informing them of their Gender Diversity.
Where needed, to support the family by providing information of how to access both resources and services.
Training requirements
All Staff are expected to complete Gender Diversity Training as recommended by BBBSNZ.
All Branch Boards should receive basic Gender Diversity training as recommended by BBBSNZ.
All Volunteers should be advised how to respond to a young person informing of their Gender Diversity and be supported to attend Gender Diversity training.
Child intake
During the child intake process, the young person will be asked how they want to be identified in terms of gender, alongside any other identifying information. Both the young person and their parent/caregiver will be asked to consider the preferred gender of the mentor, if they have a preference, understanding their gender may change in the future.
Volunteer intake
When conducting the screening process, Staff should determine the openness of a mentor to Gender Diversity and their willingness to be educated. This should be documented in the Applicant Assessment. Where an applicant appears to be more closed, further screening should be completed to determine their suitability.
The Volunteer interview will include enquiry about the mentor’s gender identity and preferences for mentoring.
Matching
When matching a gender diverse young person or mentor, the Matching Policy should state that Staff will use information gathered during Volunteer and Child intake to determine the preferred gender of the match participants. It is desirable for the young person to decide what gender they would like to be mentored by. However, it is noted that due to the age of the young person, ultimately the parent/caregiver gives the final consent to mentoring. Where there is any disagreement between the parent/caregiver and the young person, Staff should consult with other BBBS staff before determining the best course of action.
Staff should take particular note of a Volunteer’s experience of, or openness to diversity when matching them with a gender diverse young person.
While same gender matches are recommended, exceptions are allowed by consultation with all parties, including the Branch Leader.