Blue Boat: The shared voice of youth and young adult ministries of the Unitarian Universalist Association

Support at GA

By Jeremie Bateman

Your Youth Caucus Chaplains want you to know about the following resources. The Chaplain Team also has an on-call cell phone number that will be distributed during orientation.

Hi everyone!

We are your Youth Caucus chaplains, Oliver and Phoebe, and we are so excited to meet you in just a few short weeks in Providence! We, along with the rest of Youth Caucus staff, are looking forward to working with all of you to create a positive and supportive community during our time together at General Assembly. Whether you’ve been to GA before or not, it can (and probably will) at times be both exciting and overwhelming. That’s perfectly normal and we’re here to help you through GA and cheer you on!

Here are some tips and resources to that you can utilize at GA:

A chaplain is someone for you to talk to. A sort of spiritually equipped peer mediator. We have training in listening skills, crisis intervention and non-directive helping. We are here to provide you with an outlet for feelings and a compassionate presence. We won’t give you advice to solve a problem, but rather we will listen to you and help you to come up with solutions yourself!

There are also adult chaplains for the youth caucus! Their names are Donna and Andrew and they’re super wonderful and fun and they would be happy to talk to you at any time!

Come to a chaplain if. . .

  • you’re feeling lonely
  • you don’t know how to handle a situation
  • you have feelings about a workshop
  • you want to talk about your cat that died
  • something scary just happened
  • you’re super pumped and high fives rock!
  • you’re uncomfortable with something at GA
  • you miss your[mom/friend/significant other/banjo]
  • you’re worried about somebody
  • you just want someone to talk to :)

The friendship table is...

a cool place to sit if you’d like some company and you can:

  • play a board game!
  • Draw a picture
  • meet up for lunch!
  • check in with a chaplain!
  • find new friends!

The friendship table will be located in the Youth Caucus room.

Self care...

  • GA is a marathon not a sprint, pace yourself
  • don’t do everything, but try some new things!
  • drink water
  • take time to sleep! programming starts early and ends late and we want to be energized throughout!
  • talk to someone post-programming to de-brief

At General Assembly, we have a structure in place to deal with interpersonal conflicts and relationships called the Right Relationship Team.

Right relationship is a community ideal achieved through a conversation and conflict resolution tool. The aim of the Right Relationship Team is to help GA attendees who feel out of relationship with others. This helps us align our actions with our UU Principles and with the covenants that we make with one another. You’ll see Right Relationship Team members (including Oliver and Phoebe!) in brightly colored t-shirts at GA. They give regular updates during general session on issues that have been brought to them and will create a space for public conversation if necessary.

Every morning, we will have youth spiritual practices at 7:30am in the youth caucus room to take a few moments of peace and quiet to prepare ourselves for the rest of the day.

We hope that GA is a wonderful experience for you all and that you take good care of yourself and each other.

With love,

Oliver and Phoebe Take me back to the main page