I was enlightened today. This workshop opened my eyes to minor-attracted persons. This is something that will affect my clinical profession. Thank you!
– Eric
The B4U-ACT conference was a wonderful experience. It provided an incredible opportunity for MAPs and top-flight clinicians and researchers to collaborate on issues that support the well-being of MAPs while enhancing the safety of children in a positive supportive environment. I look forward to this meeting all year!
– James P.
The workshop is an unparalleled in-person, face-to-face opportunity to improve your understanding of minor-attracted people. As a MAP or someone curious about them, you are able to engage in authentic conversations that reveal our common humanity as well as our diversity, pushing beyond pop culture’s censorship and caricatures.
– Seth Harrison
Always powerful to hear the stories, to make the issues personal. I’m glad we brainstormed practical solutions.
– Anne
If you feel this conference is valuable, consider making a donation toward conference expenses or toward the financial assistance fund which will allow attendance by those with minoritized identities who otherwise would be unable to attend. Donations up to a total of $1000 will be doubled, and U.S. donations are tax deductible to the extent allowed by law.
I found value in the whole experience. Since I was showing up as a therapist in the space, the initial value was getting to meet MAPs in the real world, outside of the therapeutic realm. Being able to just be present as a person in an accepting environment, gave a mutual sense of welcome. I felt very embraced by most if not all in attendance.
Additionally, as a professional it felt very validating that people valued my contribution to mental health promotion with MAPs. I suppose as a non-MAP I’m usually apprehensive about offending or saying the wrong thing, but it was an encouraging example to see how the MAPs were very comfortable in themselves to share a joke and generally be open about themselves, which I found very relaxing and welcoming.
Despite being in a room with MAPs and non-MAPs, it struck me how much our distinctions at times didn’t seem to matter. If you were to ask me to ‘pick one out of the room’ I’d probably struggle, because they could have been one or any of us. I think my point here is that when there’s a stigma that surrounds a population, you realise how being in a room where everything is just normal, puts into perspective just how troublesome and unnecessary that stigma is at times.
– John
Read Jayce Eddison’s letter of gratitude for his life-changing experience made possible by financial assistance to attend last year’s workshop. Consider donating to our financial assistance fund.
One of the most valuable parts of this workshop – of any B4U-ACT conference and workshop, really – is that it got so many people from different walks of life into the room and speaking on equal footing. Professionals and MAPs could talk to each other not as researcher and researched, treater and treated, but as two human beings who could work together to achieve similar aims. It really reminds you that what we’re dealing with are people, families, communities.
– Peace
I found the workshop to be very non-threatening, therapeutic and positive. We all were able to speak openly and share our life experiences, ups and downs, etc. We all had such a fun time and I made many new friends. The workshop speakers and topics were very informative. I greatly appreciated learning about what other resources and educational materials are available to us. Thank you and I look forward to the next workshop.
– George B. Peters
It was an incredible and insightful experience. When I was there, I felt an earnest sense of community, and I also learned how diverse the MAP experience is. I feel like I can better advocate for myself, and for people like me because of it.
– Jordan
It’s just really nice to be with other MAPs as myself and feeling like I don’t have to hide who I am. Second, I enjoy being able to be part of the work of educating therapists about MAP issues and being able to help shape important discussions by giving my own life experience and perspective. Third, it’s a great way to meet other MAPs and build genuine in-person community.
– Annette Ordelia (she/her)
I find the annual B4U-Act workshop really valuable every year in a number of ways: it’s made a big difference in my own process of better accepting myself as a MAP, and in overcoming my own internalized shame and negativity about the feelings of minor attraction that I have, but did not choose. Like many others, I’ve been very isolated as a “closeted” MAP, for most of my life, so it has been immensely helpful to meet other MAPs in person, and to talk about our lives and feelings and experiences together.
The workshops are also a great opportunity for me to meet and to learn from many impressive MAP allies, who are doing great work in academia and mental health professions to spread fact-based information about what minor attraction really is, and isn’t, and to help MAPs and non-MAPs to see us as human beings worthy of acceptance, empathy and good mental health! I have also valued the opportunity to be one of many MAP representatives to non-MAPs attending the workshops, to offer my own experiences and perspectives to others, in a relaxed and respectful and “safe” setting.
– S.J.
If you feel this conference is valuable, consider making a donation. Donations up to a total of $1000 will be doubled, and U.S. donations are tax deductible to the extent allowed by law.
For conference expenses
For financial assistance fund
