That way, you'll both feel free to express your thoughts and emotions. What's a safe place? A safe place is a physical location or an online platform where you're both comfortable meeting. It should be accessible, yet private. Space, on the other hand, is the environment and atmosphere you create.
A safe space is that feeling of comfort and acceptance within a place. Wondering how you can you ensure a safe place and space for you and your peer? Check out the Center's youth engagement toolkit for tips, strategies and examples! Now that you know how to create the right environment for you and your peer, let's talk about communication techniques. It’s important for you to pay attention to the language you use. A key piece of advice from other youth peer supporters is to mirror the language that you hear.
This means taking your cues from the person you are supporting. A good example is the use of gender pronouns. It’s important not to assume to know someone's gender based on their appearance, name or other character traits. When you first meet your peer, you can ask what their pronouns are. This is one of the most fundamental ways you can show trans* or gender non-conforming youth respect, as it demonstrates that you accept them for who they are. Another great piece of advice is to adapt to the situation. Pay attention to the individuals and groups you are supporting, and be prepared to have discussions about language and what terms are appropriate to them or not.
You may even want to set some guidelines relating to language. Remember, discussing language can be a great learning opportunity for everyone. There are different types of questions you can ask your peer to get the conversation going. For example, there are yes or no questions,which lead to a short, straight-forward answer. There are also open-ended questions, which empower your peer to guide the conversation and focus on the elements that THEY need or want to talk about. Open-ended question cannot be answered simply with yes or no; they require a more elaborate answer. As a youth peer supporter, your role is to listen to their responses without interruption and without leading the conversation in a specific direction.
To get the conversation going, you can ask questions such as:
- Can you break this down to help me to better understand?
- How would you like things to be different?
- What are the positives about this? What are the negatives?
- and What do you want to do next?
So, your peer shared their story with you. Now what? Well, it’s time for you to practice reflective listening. This means trying to understand what your peer is sharing with you and confirming that you understood it correctly. It may seem easy, but it takes practice to do it well.
To practice reflective listening:
- acknowledge what your peer is feeling;
- repeat or summarize what you've heard to make sure you understood it well; and ask for clarification or more details when needed.
The use of affirmations is another helpful communication tool. Affirmations are statements and gestures that recognize your peer’s strengths and their behaviors that lead to positive change —no matter how big or small.
That’s what affirmations are for: to build your peer’s confidence in their ability to change. But to be effective, affirmations must be genuine and consistent.
For example:
you could tell your peer: I appreciate that you were willing to meet with me today; You handled yourself really well in that situation; or You were really brave to share this with me.
It’s also very important for you to show empathy. This means understanding and sharing the feelings expressed by your peer. Empathetic listening is key to providing good youth peer support.
Are you wondering what’s the difference between empathy and sympathy?
You’ll also learn more on how to be an empathetic listener! Finally, it’s important to communicate in a nonviolent way. You and your peer may not always agree or see eye-to-eye… and that’s normal! What’s important is to talk those conflict sou in a healthy way. To do that, try to use nonviolent communication techniques. Nonviolent communication focuses on being empathetic to your peer’s feelings as well as your own. Nonviolent communication techniques will help you think, listen and speak in ways that are compassionate to both of you. Some simple techniques include: When in conflict, stop for a moment and take a deep breath.
Ask yourself:
“What's my point of view?
Why do I think this is the right point of view?” Ask your peer what their point of view is and really listen to their answer. Just like for reflective listening,mirror back what you heard to make sure you truly understood what your peer meant. Ideally, avoid using text messages or email sin a conflict situation. Communication relies heavily on tone and body language. The chances of misinterpreting one another,or of making the situation worse, are much greater when writing or reading a message. So, meet in person if a conflict arises. And don’t forget: always follow-up and debrief with your peer and one of your supports after a conflict situation, and encourage your peer to do the same. This will help both of you learn, grow and let go. Thanks for reading! Up next, sharing your story.
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