Notes from Interview with Renee and Rob. BothCodes (47-79) Role work with LGBTQ Homeless Youth What motivates you to do this work? Finding ways to do Youth Work that is outside of the system was out of the system and felt more community based. (Rob) Got into the work through community involvement. In evolved into me becoming more aware of my power and privilege within this work as someone who is white, has a masters degree, queer. This shapes the work that I do. A lot of identity politics kind of intentionally encouraged me to get into this work and i have been doing it for 25 plus years. (Renee) Do you interface with the police in your work? If so, how? When I first started working in the Twin Cities as a youth counselor in the shelter- part of the protocol was to call the police when there was an incident. There were times where i would try to find alternatives but there were times also where I would be working with other youth workers and we wouldn’t always be on the same page with when to call the police. Now in the position i’m in at _____ we have very little interaction with the police. (Rob) 2. Codes (1119-1375) When do you call the police? “I really try to have as little as possible. I do not like the police. I don’t like working with the police. I don’t like doing trainings with the police.” “My own relationship with the police and how I relate to them is not always what shows up at work.” Codes (1377-1553) Strong Quotes “Queer and trans youth with whom we work, especially queer trans youth of color have said time and time again that where they experience the most violence is with the police.” (Renee) Codes (1564-1690) When do you call the police? I Don’t use that world as a resource for support or safety. Only use as a last resort. Maybe I have called twice in 25 years. I work with an organization where we do have to partner with the police. The kids we work with feel the most unsafe with the police. Hosts also know that most of the young people do not want to interface with the police. OCodes (1912-2624) Times you interacted with the police Strong Quotes nce a month I sit in a meeting with cops in the room, which is good for me and difficult for me. There is a partnership btw sexual assault center and Hennepin County. Once a month I sit in a meeting where there are cops there. (Advocates from legal, advocacy, health and law enforcement. Sometimes it is helpful but sometimes it is not. The people that are there really want to change the system to help improve responses to ppl who experience sexual violence but I personally don’t believe that the policing system can be changed so it’s challenging to work with even when the individuals are good people that are there. “Sometimes I feel like I am working towards something that I don’t really believe in.” (Renee) What role do the police play within your work? (one of our agencies) that site has a working and evolving relationship with the police dept. The police were involved in the development of that shelter. Our Minneapolis site is trying to have a better relationship. We sometimes have police coming to us looking for youth. We don’t talk with them if they do not have a warrant. There have been times when other youth call the police within the shelter. We have a former staff member who was retired from the police and came to avenues and would incorporate trainings. That staff did a couple of trainings with police. Found ways to talk to staff about harm reductions. (Renee) Codes (3311-3772) When do you call the police? We are also mandated reporters so we are very clear with the people we work with that if they tell us certain things we have to report. It is case by case. There is no clear line in the sand of when we call the police. We are trauma informed and victim centered. If a young person does not want us to call the police and we are not required to , we won’t. Most of the time they do not want us to call the police. They don’t want to be involved with the police. Codes (3774-4027) Strong Quotes Non-police system failures What we see is that homeless youth we see that the white kids get funneled into mental health facilities and POC kids get funneled into the criminal justice system which sets them up to have a record which makes it very difficult for them to get a job. When do you call them? Mandated reporting, Are they stationed at your work? No Is it the same officer? N/A What make your interactions with the police more smooth? WheCodes (4222-4427) Positive Interaction n we do call cops we try to ask for cops that are trained in CIT (Crisis intervention team) These are officers that are trained around mental health, were not always able to get them but we always ask. After your interaction with the police, what is follow-up? There hasn’t been any follow up in the scenarios that I’ve experienced. What do you do before you call the police? Is this a last resort? Do you try to avoid calling them and why? WhaCodes (4670-4859) When do you call the police? t is the tipping point, or what shifts, when you choose to call the police? It has to be a last resort for me, I will put my body in front of confrontation before contacting the police. TelCodes (4861-5272) Positive Interaction l me about a time when your interaction with police was positive. What made it positive? “Good” Example: When Officers were called to do a transfer of a youth at (name of org) in Brooklyn park. they were very receptive to not come in their uniform for example but we do not think that would be the same in Minneapolis. They seem more open to our expertise in Brooklyn Park but not really yet in Minneapolis. Tell me about a time when your interaction was negative. Again, describe the situation in as much detail as possible. Ex: we Codes (5396-5931) Negative Interaction called 911 the EMT had arrived before the police- we had called 911 for medical help - the EMT took care of it and the police came and were very forceful and were trying to force their way into the shelter even though we were clear that we didn’t need them anymore. “The situation had been taken care of and they didn’t believe me and they were kind of confrontational and pushing and i wouldn’t let them in the building because there was no reason for them to be in the building.” Nothing resulted in it they did end up leaving. (Rob) *StaCodes (5939-6283) Failures of the police ff at (name of org) are really good about letting youth know, police are coming, if you need to leave you should. “We know that most of the kids we work with are not comfortable with police around. That’s where they live, it is their home and most of them don’t have anything positive to say about the police, they do not want to see them.” What do you have in place to not call the police? We Codes (6335-6904) Solutions have people that have come in to do restorative justice circles and conflict resolution circles to help the youth and staff see alternative ways of handling conflict. What kind of resources would the community need to do in order for you to do what you need to do? -What resources or trainings would you need in order not to call on the police? Our staff just had a training with Youth mental health first responder. To have a better understanding of mental health and be able to interact and meet young people where they are at. *Youth mental health First Aid* - TCodes (6906-7087) Wishlist/dream resources here needs to be more support for staff. Staff are typically overworked and underpaid/under resourced. “The social service design isn’t really equipped to provide alternatives.” Rob (-PCodes (7091-7537) Solutions eople that are willing to provide housing) for (name of org) have to go through 16H of training. If you are a white host we teach them about white supremacy and white privilege. We not only train them around their own work but also their neighbors etc. etc. we encourage hosts to introduce people to neighbors etc. etc. We see this as preventative ways so ppl are not calling the cops or their neighbors are not calling the cops on the youth. What is your sense of the relationship between the police & people you serve? “Queer and trans youth with whom we work, especially queer trans youth of color have said time and time again that where they experience the most violence is with the police.” Renee What would you envision as a positive/restorative way to deal with the danger of violence assuming that it’s not armed police? (more visioning) This is a question we are always asking ourselves, how to build an intentional community. At (name of org) we have 20 young people. We balance the needs of an individual young person and the other 19 youth living at (name of org) We Codes (8179-8451) No clear code work to see that it is never black and white (It never feels like victim/perpetrator) because all the perpetrators are victims as well and we really hold that at the center of our work. We obviously need money but no one wants to fund housing for perpetrator violence. We struggle to find housing for even youth that are solely victims of violence. It’s very unusual for us to have to call the police. We do more restorative circles to meet with both parties are having a conflict where they are both in conflict. If it’s a clear perpetrator victim we won’t do that. We had a situation where a staff member was mugged on the street by a youth and they chose not to call the police, when we do slow down and recognize the gray areas and the willingness of the other side to see humanity and the other side to be accountable. We need all the layers of restorative justice to be there. We need staff to be trained in what it means to call the police. We need everyone that works to have a better understanding of mental health so they can meet young people where they are it. It’s called Youth mental health first aid and its for the common person to gain understanding on how to interact with youth experiencing mental health. What do you feel like would be useful or helpful resources that isn’t happening in your own work? *Bringing trainings from Lara Brooks out of Chicago do a training with a lot of youth workers on alternatives to police while working with youth. This would be really important for us to have this training. To have the capacity to do more trainings, we would be staffed more appropriately. *IfCodes (9801-10298) Wishlist/dream resources there is a harmful interaction with two young people that are staying at our shelter, we would ideally have another place for them to go stay to have time to take space as we work to resolve conflicts, do restorative justice or restoration circles. It’s difficult when conflict arises within the shelter and there is not a place for one youth to go if youth need to be split up. If we were building community we would have space for that youth to go so they wouldn’t have to lose their home. (Renee) Is there anything you would like to add? Notes: We have had a former staff member that worked really hard to do trainings with the police but really felt like the system could change and she wanted it to change. She would help train staff about harm reduction when the police would show up to create a situation that was less likely to escalate. We have a lot of staff who are POC or indigenous who have had relationships with the police that are negative. There isn’t trust across the board with our staff with the police. (Rob) “When we work with young people who are experiencing homelessness those young people tend to come into contact with law enforcement much more than other young people. What we see is that youth of color get funneled into the juvenile justice system and white youth get funneled into the mental health and chemical dependency systems so that has a huge impact on their future when it comes to employment, when it comes to housing and that’s a huge barrier for youth of color.” (Renee) “How do we create community in a way that healing can happen?” We try to have connections with employers who will hire youth with histories of incarceration. Renee