QHUB COMES TO GEELONG

QHub – a place for you to show your colours.

Queerspace shared the love last Wednesday, February 14 at the opening of their new queer safe space here in Geelong. 

QHub is an inclusive space for LGBTQIA+ young people and their families. They can access support and build connections while exploring their identity in a safe and judgment free zone.

94.7 The Pulse was proudly invited to come along to the opening of the QHub. We had a chance to chat to some of the amazing people involved in bringing QHub to life.

Karen Fields, the CEO of Drummond Street Services and Queerspace, told us about the space and how it came about.

“QHub was driven by concerns both in community but also by local services. Including our own and our own staff around the increases that we were seeing in poor mental health of LGBTIQI young people.” She said.

“Young people, in particular those who are marginalised by their sexuality and gender, often don’t have safe spaces to meet. To come together with a group of people where they are going to be, you know, affirmed as their absolutely amazing selves.

“What we’ve been able to do is build a hub where we’ve got lots of allied services that can support young people. We can help steer them and navigate them to the sorts of services that they might need.”

The hub is home to a wide range of activities available for any of its visitors. They have comfortable places to sit, a queer library, pride flags hung across the walls, and much more. The main goal of this space was inclusivity, to make sure everyone knows they are welcome.

“The space recognises that, there are the obvious LGBTI young people, but having the space that’s accessible to those people that have a disability, that are affirming of people, who may be queer and of colour, everyone is welcome to bring all those authentic parts of themselves.” Karen added.

QHub is home to a wide variety of staff members. They come from the queer community themselves or are straight allied staff members who all offer differing support for the community.
Michael Gordon-Tarnowski, Youth and Family Practitioner for QHub, spoke to us as well. He said that being a part of setting up this safe space for the queer community is a “beautiful legacy.”

Michael has been a part of Drummond Street Services since 2020. He has seen a lot of tragedy among LGBTQIA+ communities, particularly in young people, who haven’t had the access to services such as QHub. 

“Tragedy, mental health crisis and higher suicide rates particularly in regional areas… science shows our regional communities are 11% greater than cities. Being able to be a support to the community to see those numbers reduce is so important to me.” He told us.

Michael, as well as all of the other wonderful staff down at QHub, works closely with young people, ages 0-25, as well as families.

They offer individual sessions and meetings with family members. Not only do they support LGBTQIA+ young people as they explore and affirm themselves, but they give the right tools to the families to be able to support them as well.

QHub is a massive leap in the right direction for showing our love and support for LGBTQIA+ young people as a community.

Christine Couzens, member of the Victorian Legislative Assembly for Geelong, also had a chance to chat with us. We asked her about how she believes this space will help with some of the big issues we see the LGBTQIA+ community face in our community.

“The fact that we’ve got this here now is a steppingstone… I would actually love to see this grow… We are on that cultural change, that journey, but we bring the community with us.”

She told us that in a change as important as this, it’s just as important to ensure we are not leaving the community behind.

“It’s about being accepted by a community, which is what’s happening here… They may not understand the struggles that young people face but they’re prepared to go on that journey [with them].”

The community can get involved and support QHub by reaching out to the individual programs that are in partnership with Queerspace. These include Wellways, Drummond Street Services, and Child and Family Services (CAFS).

The staff over at QHub encourage you to follow them on their social media (@QHubGeelong) and show your support over there, as well.

Christine encourages the Geelong community to get involved in any way they can. “No matter how small it is, but to get that understanding of how important things like this are, and it can be lifechanging.”