Standing up for LGBTI seniors
An upcoming event will support aged care services to not only respond appropriately to the needs of LGBTI seniors but also to act as advocates for them, as many experience elder abuse from within their families.
Aged services, experts, carers, government and peak bodies will come together in an upcoming event to hear older lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people’s experiences of ageing and aged care.
As well as examining the impacts of discrimination on health and wellbeing, the inaugural National LGBTI Ageing and Aged Care Conference will showcase inclusive services being adopted by aged care providers.
The conference aims to support aged care services to not only respond appropriately to the needs of LGBTI seniors but also to act as advocates for them, as many experience elder abuse from within their families, said Dr Catherine Barrett, one of the organisers of the event.
“There are issues we need to understand so that service providers can go in there and really bat for older LGBTI people and be on the lookout,” said Dr Barrett, who is a senior research fellow at the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society at La Trobe University.
Dr Barrett described an incident where aged care staff brought a male resident in for a shower only to realise the resident did not have a man’s body.
“The story unfolded that this was a trans woman who had transitioned 40 years earlier, but then when she went to enter residential aged care her daughter told her if she went in as a woman she would never see her grandkids again. So this woman went in as a man and concealed her femaleness from staff until this point of showering.”
Dr Barrett said the conference will bring together key players including Alzheimer’s Australia, Carers Australia, the Australian Association of Gerontology, the National LGBTI Health Alliance, as well as federal and state health department officials and Victorian state MPs.
The conference will provide an update on the rollout of the National LGBTI Ageing and Aged Care Strategy which the Federal Government launched in 2012.
It will hear from providers who received LGBTI-specific funding under the Aged Care Service Improvement and Healthy Ageing Grants to develop and implement inclusive services and support the national strategy.
Dr Barrett said the event was planned so as to “walk people through” the evidence and the best practice around LGBTI inclusive services.
“The conference starts with the government talking about the strategy; then we go to the experiences of discrimination and its impact on health and wellbeing, then to older people’s experiences of aged care.
“Hopefully by then people are convinced this is a group of seniors who have particular needs, and on the second day we focus on how you can create an inclusive service.”
The criteria for the presentations was that they had to be evidence-based, drew on the experiences of older LGBTI people, incorporated the voices of LGBTI people, and focussed on practical strategies, said Dr Barrett.
Commenting on the progress made thus far in delivering the national LGBTI strategy, Dr Barrett said the workforce training initiatives had “taken off like a rocket”, particularly in community aged care.
“We can’t keep up with the demand; there’s been this fantastic response from aged care service providers. Because there have been some studies and some media, it got people talking and that’s really generated quite a lot of interest,” she said.
The National LGBTI Ageing and Aged Care Conference takes place 28-29 October at Melbourne Town Hall. Australian Ageing Agenda is a media partner of the conference.
