Members of the LGBT+ community have been found by recent Glasgow research to experience mental and physical health inequalities throughout their life, as well as face poorer access to health and care services.

In this latest edition of Connected Communities, the ALLIANCE’s Calum Clark speaks with both the CEO and the Head of Income Generation and Engagement at LGBT Health and Wellbeing about its efforts to improve the physical, social, and mental health and wellbeing of LGBT adults across Scotland, while facing an increasingly precarious funding situation.

The charity delivers a range of services and events designed to meet the needs of LGBTQ+ adults across Scotland, including providing mental health services, 1:1 advice and support, counselling, therapeutic groupwork, inclusive spaces, as well as running Scotland’s LGBT Helpline.

CEO Mark Kelvin says that working closely and collaborating with others across sectors, the charity can offer the best-possible support to Scotland’s LGBTQ+ community.

“The LGBT sector in Scotland is incredibly collegiate”, Mark says. “We work closely with each other as well as with statutory partners, which includes producing joint applications in competitive tender processes. Whilst there is sometimes a reality that forces us to be ‘competitors’ with each other, our shared ambition to improve the lives of LGBT people in Scotland enables us to collaborate far more than to compete.”

The organisation offers tailored services that are designed to meet the needs of LGBTQ+ refugee and asylum seekers, transgender people, ‘older’ people (50+), LGBT families, and LGBT carers.

It also supports the delivery of volunteer-led social programmes, including various sports, crafting, outdoor activities, music, and more.

Natalie Summers, Head of Income Generation and Engagement, adds that because of this, the charity has been able to make a difference to the lives of many across Scotland.

“77% of people attending our programs and events have shared that they feel less isolated”, Natalie says. “As well as delivering LGBTQ+ specific services, the charity aims to support ‘mainstream’ services to become inclusive, which includes offering training, as well as our National Policy Lead facilitating the community’s response to consultations with the Scottish Government, the NHS and other bodies.”

By sharing decision-making and collaborating with the LGBTQ+ community to ensure their experiences can truly shape policy, LGBT Health and Wellbeing work in partnership across sectors to make key connections, overcome barriers, and transform the lives of LGBTQ+ people in Scotland.

“Working in partnership has been key to our expansion”, Natalie says. “We’ve gone through many challenges as a community, and by uniting and working together, we have fought for and won the rights we have today. But the work continues to ensure we keep making progress towards a fair, inclusive and progressive Scotland where all LGBTQ+ people can thrive.”

Despite a working relationship with the statutory sector, Mark adds that “funding is increasingly scarce and the cost of delivering services is rising”, meaning that the charity is required to effectively subsidise statutory service delivery in order to mitigate the impact of health inequalities experienced by the community.

“The organisation has a proud history of working with local councils, IJBs, and HSCPs, but we are living in challenging times”, Mark says. “Just this month we received notification of a 10% reduction to committed funding two weeks short of the new financial year.

“Whilst the wider economic situation means that these decisions are understandable, what is more difficult to understand is the lack of communication and consultation that can occur around such decisions, so we welcome more communication between statutory funding bodies and the third sector to allow for better planning and service provision.”

In line with this, LGBT Health and Wellbeing are committed to working with the community and across the sectors to ensure that LGBTQ+ people can collaborate on decisions that affect them, whilst striving for an equal Scotland where sexuality or gender expression does not negatively impact on a person’s health and wellbeing.

 

The views of columnists and people who write other guest insights articles are their own.

This article was originally published as part of the Connected Communities series by the Health and Social Care Alliance (the ALLIANCE).

The original can be accessed here: The importance of shared decision-making for the LGBTQ+ community

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