Aug-Oct 2024 QIPS (IPS through a queer/LGBTQIA+ lens) Training - Online

The following online QIPS training (mirrors the IPS Core training but specifically through an LGBTQIA+ lens) will run for 10 sessions on Fridays with a 4-hour session timeblock set for each Friday. There will be scheduled breaks.

The 10 x sessions:

August 2, 9, 16, 23, 30; September 6, 13, 20, 27; October 4

Fridays from 12pm - 4pm EDT / 9am - 1pm PDT / 5pm - 9pm BST

Please confirm your training starting and ending times by entering your time zone here at www.worldtimebuddy.com and comparing with the listed timezones above. This training is open to people in time zones where the start time is no earlier than 7am and the finishing time is 11pm or earlier. Please contact us at [email protected] with queries.

For people in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand, please email us at [email protected] to find out about training in your country / time zone.

Run over 10 x interactive online facilitated sessions, our QIPS training (mirroring the IPS Core training) covers the principles and tasks of Intentional Peer Support. This interactive, transformational training is offered in "real time", is interactive, full of rich dialogue, and designed to have you learning and practicing peer support right away. A Certificate of Completion is offered at the conclusion of your study.

This is an interactive training so we do ask that participants have their camera on and participate in all of the activities and break out sessions.

What is QIPS?

In March 2022, we completed our second round of “queer IPS,” or QIPS–Intentional Peer Support through an LGBTQIA+* lens. This curriculum was adapted from the IPS core training at the request of the Q Corner, a peer support program in Santa Clara County, California, that supports LGBTQ+ community members.

IPS is about building relationships where our stories can be told, in which we can explore the meaning of these stories. Through sharing our stories, we build networks of support. Through these networks, we build power and create justice. In this way, IPS is about social change, and it is rooted in the civil rights movements that gained momentum around the time of gay liberation and the Stonewall riots. In the words of indigenous Australian activists in the 1970s, “your liberation is bound up with mine.”

Intersectionality

QIPS was designed to carve out space for those of us whose gender, expression, and/or sexuality don’t fit within our society’s narrow definitions of “normal,” who have historically been marginalized by institutions and systems from education to employment to healthcare to housing. From this vantage point, we examine the ways in which these systems have also marginalized those of us whose experiences of mental or emotional distress, “big feelings,” or altered states do not fit into societal definitions of “healthy.”

At the unique intersection of queer/trans communities and peer support, QIPS participants learn the tasks and principles of IPS, examine assumptions about who they are, and acknowledge personal and shared cultural histories of oppression and trauma through a lens of “what happened” rather than “what’s wrong.”

“Intentional Queer Support”

“Queer” and “Mad” are both reclaimed terms that some use to express pride and resistance to assimilation. For others, these terms are too painfully associated with trauma and violence, and other language is preferable. Language is constantly evolving and expanding, and is often generation- and culture-specific. In QIPS, we explore the power of language to create reality, to tell our stories, and to make space for one another’s worldviews.

Community

As we say in IPS, “mutual relationships heal.” Members of marginalized groups also know the healing power of belonging to a community. Through participating in QIPS, we hope that members of LGBTQIA+ communities will be more equipped to navigate crisis, conflict, and power imbalances in their supportive relationships, which in turn lends itself to stronger, more connected communities and collective liberation!

*The acronym LGBTQIA+ is commonly used to stand for “lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning, intersex, asexual/aromantic, and more.”

We have a tiered pricing structure in efforts to make our curriculum more accessible. Simply read the tier descriptions to identify the tier that applies to you. We rely on your ticket purchase to support the totality of our work, so we request that you choose the highest tier you are able to comfortably afford. Any funds collected beyond our expenses will provide scholarship to others.

Places at the lower tiered price are limited - once they are sold out we cannot release more of these places until the next round of training. Seats offered on a first-come, first-served basis, so please register early to guarantee a seat!

Registration cost for the full course of 10 x sessions:

Agency Rate (where the organization or agency is paying for an employee's spot) - $900 (per person)

Self-Funded / Employed Rate (where a person purchasing a ticket is employed and paying their own way) - $600 (per person)

Unemployed / Student Rate (for those who are not working or are full-time students) - $300 (per person)

If the lower tiered rates are sold out and you wish to be considered for a lower rate place at a future training, please contact us at: [email protected].

Experiencing barriers around cost or financial hardship?

If you are experiencing barriers around cost, please still reach out to us at [email protected] - we would be happy to discuss options with you and have a process for making a limited number of subsidies/scholarships available.

Please note: If you are hoping to use the learning from this training to join the peer support workforce please know that we cannot provide placements or work opportunities as part of the training.

For more about IPS, please visit our website: www.intentionalpeersupport.org

Event Venue

Online