WKA Participants: Emily, Erica

We observed the daily Community Meeting in the Drop-In lounge on December 13^th. The room was full and we saw many familiar faces from our previous focus group with young people.

Music was playing in Drop-In via Pandora on the TV. Music was turned off once the daily noon Community Meeting began.

There are a lot of doors opening onto Drop-In – from the clinic and staff spaces at the back, from the sleeping room, and from the waiting room. There are a lot of staff and young people passing through the space to get to other spaces, making it hard to pay attention to the Community Meeting. There are a lot of distractions.

There were three people sleeping on the comfy chairs in drop-in during the community meeting. Blankets are provided. More sleeping rooms are needed.

Every young person seemed to have a backpack with them. The cell phone charging station got a lot of use.

The rules of the Community Meeting are:

• One Diva One Mic
• Respect the Stack
• No Direct Attacks

The Community Meeting has an agenda, posted on the wall:

1. Welcome
2. Gratitudes
3. This week in Programming
4. Multiverse
5. Pulse
6. Resource of the Week
7. Hellos
8. Goodbyes

One young person helps lead the meeting.   We began with Introductions and what we are looking forward to in 2020.  The resounding themes were:

• Growth
• Change
• New Beginnings
• Stability
• Focus
• Finance
• New/More Opportunities
• Finding a Job
• Promoting myself
• Going back to school

This Week in Programming

BYC will offer more acting and voguing programs in 2020.

Multiverse

We heard about a racist incident that took place when a group of BYC young people were discriminated against at an event the night before.

One young person was sharing about difficult family relationships and was pulled into a huddle room to continue the conversation one-on-one.

We heard about changes to SNAP benefits from one of the staff members. The requirement for hours is changing from 20 hours to 30 hours, and the RA’s will help spitball ways to meet the 30 hour requirement.

Pulse

The topic today was: What do you want in your new space?

• Bigger
• Wall for Community Meeting agenda
• Bigger lockers
• Bigger sleeping room
• A screen for playing video games instead of watching Netflix all day
• Bigger bathroom
• Island for food
• Refrigerator in Drop-in
• Recliners
• Three different areas:
  • – one for games,
  • – one for watching TV,
  • – one for listening to music.
• Murals with all different types of couples represented
• Dimmer lights for calmer activities
• Brighter lights – red or blue – for less calm activities
• Computer lab in drop-in
• Music Room where young people can express themselves through music
• Full height lockers
• Beanbag chairs
• Aquarium