Pride month at Restorative – celebration, reflection and understanding
June, as Pride month, is special for us at Restorative. We look forward to our Pride celebrations, with special events planned throughout our homes. But, importantly, it’s an opportunity for us to bring a laser focus to Pride’s origins and values, and what these means for us as an organisation and in our work to support young people.
Pride values inform our practice
Equality, diversity and the freedom to live a visible, authentic life is, unfortunately, not the reality every young person faces. Our model of support to young people works directly to combat this and we aim to promote inclusion at every level of our practice. Acceptance, understanding and visibility of every young person, and employee in our organisation, underpin our approach, but involved in this work, is also understanding what holds us back.
Pride month is therefore a useful opportunity, to talk and discuss with our young people, and within our teams, about more we can do, and the actions we can take, to further embed Pride values of equality, tolerance and celebration of ourselves as individuals into our work processes and practice.
What Pride is and how it began
Pride month, typically celebrated in June, although some Pride events take place in July, originated from the first Gay Pride march in London on the 1st of July 1972, sparked by the 1969 Stonewall Riots in New York. The Stonewall Riots were a protest at the police harassment experienced at the Stonewall Inn in by New York’s gay, lesbian, transgender and crossdressing community.
The first Pride month was known as ‘gay Pride month’ but has, in more recent Pride’s, come to include and celebrate all of the LGBTQIA+ community and the right to live as an individual. Although still a form of protest against lack of freedom, visibility and the right to live an authentic life, Pride is also a celebration of diversity and acceptance.
Flying the flag all year round
We will certainly be flying the rainbow flag high this month, but we know how important it is to young people’s, and all our, healthy futures, that tolerance and acceptance are the norm all year round.
While we work to the principals of Social Graces, ‘a practical tool to address inequality’, it isn’t exhaustive, and the more we can do to combat lack of equity and marginalisation in our work with young people, the better for all of us.
We look forward to celebrating all our amazing young people and team again this Pride month and supporting them and each other to be the individuals they want to be.
Keep an eye on our social media for more updates from our homes.