National Conversation on LGBT Mental Health (Community Discussion)
In 2018, half of LGBT people in Scotland experienced poor mental health. However 37% report they struggle to find mainstream health information that is relevant to them. At LGBT Health and Wellbeing, we all too often hear from our counselling clients that they have struggled to get mental health support elsewhere which affirms and gives the right weighing to their sexual orientation or gender identity. With high demand for our services, we want to do more to raise awareness about the needs of LGBT adults in accessing mental health services. Specifically, we want to help build the capacity of mainstream services to respond to some of the specific experiences and needs of our community.
We started a national conversation on 22nd September 2019 and ran a day of engagement exploring the experiences of LGBT people and mental health services. We held a total of three events engaging 105 participants in person and 7,264 online followers.
Our Community Brunch brought LGBT people together to share their lived experiences of services in Scotland, talk about the barriers and discuss potential solutions.
Our Community Discussion brought together LGBT people and a range of organisations that promote mental health to discuss what services could do to be more inclusive. We were grateful to have a panel of four speakers share their own stories of using services and what they could improve. They generously allowed us to record their stories so that they could be shared more widely after the event. Thank you to our friends Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland to help us turn our community discussion into a shareable audio recourse. We hope you find their stories helpful, whether you’re looking for ways for your organisation to become more inclusive, or you just want to know you’re not alone.
A Spoken Word Event provided a welcoming and creative space for LGBT people to share their journey and take ownership of their story.
The event report below highlights key messages about the lived experiences of LGBT people accessing mainstream mental health services, recommendations for developing inclusive services, and how you can continue this important conversation.
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