And let’s face it – everyone loves a celebration. It’s fun, it lifts spirits, it builds connection and community, and it makes us all feel better about who we, and each other, are.

There can be some really simple things you can do in your service to make those celebrations alive a vibrant for your clients. It doesn’t matter whether you have people at your service who identify with the communities that the various International Days commemorate – but of course it’s great if you do and, more likely than not, you will.

Here’s a list of some of the days you might like to think about including in your service’s program of celebrations:

• May 15 International Day of Families
• May 17 International Day against homophobia, bi-phobia and transphobia
• May 21 World Day for Cultural Diversity
• May 27-June 3 National Reconciliation Week (including May 26, National Sorry Day)
• 1 June Global Day of Parents
• 7 June Ramadan begins
• 19-25 June Refugee Week
• 20 June World Refugee Day
• 3-10 July NAIDOC week
• 7 July Eid Al Fitr

A good way to plan for these days is to include your clients in discussions about what might be done. Even planning a celebration can be as much fun, and as strongly building of community, as the celebration itself.

Each of these days celebrate different people, cultures and events. They all generate their own possibilities for something to mark the day. A day that celebrates families and parents, for example, could be celebrated by people sharing photos of their own families, their own children and parents, or telling stories. Your clients’ families could be encouraged to come along and be part of this.

For a day like International Day against homophobia, bi-phobia and transphobia, you could show a film like Priscilla: Queen of the Desert.

On days that celebrate particular cultures, or commemorate important events in their history, such as Sorry Day or the beginning of Ramadan, you could bring into your service a representative of the community being marked by the day, and they could chat with clients about the history of their culture, or even just tell their own personal story as an indigenous person, a Muslim person, and so on. Imagine the stories that could be told about the thousands of years of Aboriginal history of the place at which your service is located! Foods from different cultures could be part of the day, or displays of art and music.

For something like Refugee Week, chances are that there are people using your service who have themselves come from backgrounds where they needed to flee persecution and war. Many will still have memories and stories to share. You could spend a day encouraging them to do this, find pictures and old newspaper clippings about the journeys people have made to Australia, and have them on display throughout your service. Libraries and the Internet can be great sources for this sort of archival material.

All of these celebrations provide you with the opportunity to involve the outside community in your service, too. There are community organisations that are devoted to each of the issues commemorated on these days, and many of them will be more than keen to engage with the people using your service.

The possibilities are endless – and the important thing to do is to try to think what will resonate with and connect to the people who use your service. Even though some of these days are about very serious issues, the day can still be about having fun, sharing yarns, and encouraging respect. It’s a chance to discover, and to rediscover, that, regardless of age, life and communities are full of different histories, different stories, different ways of celebrating what it means to be a person.

Agility can help aged care, health and disability services with planning these sorts of days. We can come and spend time with your staff and talk about strategies you might want to adopt for planning a celebration with your service users in a way that will be meaningful for them, and in which they can be genuinely and meaningfully included. We can also help you to get media to your event to highlight your diversity and ability to connect with community.

No one should miss out on a chance for a party, or simply to sit down and listen to someone else tell an amazing tale about an amazing past.

For more on making your service accessible to a diverse range of people see Are your aged care services inclusive and supportive of your LGBTI clients 

Henna print on hand

The post Can’t find your point of difference? Make it diversity. appeared first on Agility Communications.

One of the really great things about providing aged care services is that you are supporting one of the richest and most diverse mixes of people in our community. The aged and ageing population is made up of people with long and lively histories, with stories that have been at the core of who we all now are, and with identities that reflect the vibrant mix of people that make up today’s Australia.

While we are all getting much better at recognising and celebrating that diversity, especially in terms of the many cultures, languages and ethnicities that people bring to your services, one group that can often be forgotten in the mix are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and intersex people – or GLBTI people.

The terms can sometimes be hard to grasp, and you may feel they are changing all the time, and even people who themselves identify as members of the GLBTI communities may mean slightly different things when they use these words, or may describe themselves with other words altogether. While this can feel confusing, and you might be unsure about what terms to use and what they mean, it is actually a good thing because it reminds us that people all think and talk about themselves differently, even in relation to their sexuality and gender. When we grasp the value of those differences, and respect them, we have already begun to lay the right foundations to providing services in ways that will make people feel they belong.

The lives and experiences of GLBTI people will be as diverse as the people themselves. Today’s aged and ageing population has grown up through times of considerable change in relation to how issues of sexuality and gender are understood by communities, families, churches, the law and society more broadly. None of this, of course, has affected how many people are GLBTI – there have always been GLBTI people in all walks of life, and across all age groups – but it has affected how those people have thought about themselves, and how easy or difficult it has been for them to live their lives openly amongst their families, colleagues and friends.

So you can be sure that you will have GLBTI people in your service, but you cannot be sure how they will see or feel about this aspect of who they are. Some may have histories of being very open about their GLBTI identity; some may have told no one or very few people; some may just be beginning now to feel good about who they are and to feel like living their life more openly as a GLBTI person; some may still be struggling with all of these issues.

It is important that your service is able to be inclusive and supportive of your GLBTI clients, wherever they might be on this journey. Issues of sexuality and gender identity continue to be immensely important for people as they age – and sometimes even more so, as a decline in independence and loss of skills can intrude upon people’s sense of who they are and of what defines them.

There are many ways that your service can strengthen its inclusiveness of, and support to, your GLBTI clients. One is to consider undergoing Rainbow Tick accreditation. The Rainbow Tick was funded by the Victorian Government Department of Health and was developed by Gay and Lesbian Health Victoria together with Quality Improvement and Community Services Accreditation. It involves both self-assessment and external review, and is based on a set of standards that identify a range of areas and indicators for good practice in meeting the needs of GLBTI clients. A Rainbow Tick can be a great way of showing that you are a service that is committed to including GLBTI people in positive, progressive ways.

You might also like to check out an article about transgender issues in particular, which provides some simple tips about how to be more inclusive of, and how to avoid being offensive towards, your transgender clients. It’s only a start – but it’s a good start and a good way to keep mindful of some of the important issues. It can be surprising how much we don’t think about, when we are used to thinking only in conventional ways about gender and gender identity.

You can also engage the services of Agility to help you think through the issues, to strengthen your communications around GLBTI accessibility and relevance, and to talk to your staff about lived experience of GLBTI.  Agility can tailor its consultation and training services to the particular needs and focus of your organisation.

Remember, GLBTI people are already part of your client group. As GLBTI issues get more recognition in the broader community, and as GLBTI people and their friends and families become more attuned to their rights and their place in the rich diversity of modern society, you can expect not only that the demands on your services to be more GLBTI-friendly will increase, but so, too, will the pride you will have in adding The Rainbow Tick to your strengths.

GLBTI might seem like a lot of letters for a lot of words. But that’s only because it’s about a lot of people. And that’s why it’s important.

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A USA Today survey on people’s fears around ageing showed that 64% of the respondents who were all over 65 said they were most afraid of losing independence or living in pain. Quite likely the same survey would come up with similar results in Australia.

But, what if you surveyed only older lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people?

Yes, they would most likely fear losing independence or living in pain as well. But a trailer to a very poignant video that I viewed last year called Gen Silent had me thinking what else might they fear? The video shows that LGBTI Elders are going back into the closet in record numbers because they are fearful of being treated unfairly or even cruelly if they are ‘out’.

A Southern Cross University study found that ageing lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people in NSW are concerned about the lack of LGBTI-friendly aged care and retirement facilities and fear discrimination.

The study reports that “Older LGBTI people thinking of accessing aged care services have often had many experiences of discrimination when they were younger and they carry that with them through their lives and so that influences how they engage with service providers.

One of the other key findings was that those identifying as LGBTI experience higher levels of psychological distress than the general population, which is more marked among those living alone or not in a relationship.

“It’s those people who are isolated, not only those people who are living alone but those people who feel disconnected, who are affected,” study author Professor Hughes said.

Further, Michael Kirby recently worried that the large multicultural workforce in aged care services may make gay friendly care harder to produce because of the prejudices and lack of information they may have on gay elders.

We know that in 2013 changes to the Sex Discrimination Act means that LGBTI people are protected from discrimination under Human Rights law. But, we know that it is difficult for vulnerable people to make complaints, especially if they are already fearful..

What can you do to help GLBTI people feel comfortable in your aged care service?

We now have the Rainbow Tick Australia, an Accreditation Program that supports organisations to understand and implement LGBTI inclusive service delivery and reassures LGBTI consumers and staff that Rainbow Tick organisations will be aware of, and responsive to their needs.

A fantastic idea, and highly recommended if you want to do more than lipservice. What else can you do?

Well, because I care mostly about how you communicate, I urge you to review all of your communication tools.

Your forms, your brochures, your website, your social media, your photos and images in your organisations and in your publications. But most importantly, your ‘people communications’. They way you and your staff talk to people, they ways that all clients are engaged and made to feel welcome.

I’d love to hear your ideas. How can you make your organisation’s communications more GLBTI friendly and welcoming?

Also, I would love to help you with your review, let me know if I can be of assistance.

Rainbow Flag

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I know that good communications is all about telling good stories and it was never clearer to me than when I attended Val’s Cafe – LGBTI Ageing and Aged Care Conference this week.

This conference was directed at highlighting issues for older lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, transgender and intersex people, particularly those who require aged care services. The conference pointed out issues of discrimination and hatred for LGBTI people, fears of coming out for people who are frightened of being treated poorly because of their sexuality, gender preference or intersex status.

Attendees were reminded that homosexuality was illegal in Victoria until 1980; that it was listed as a mental illness in the DSM, (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual – a guidebook for psychiatry) until 1974. Older GLBTI people grew up in an era of systemic homophobic.

The first day of the conference was amazing for the courage and honesty that many older gay, lesbian, trans and intersex people showed when they told the story of their experience. Experiences were different, but all had faced discrimination and many had faced violence. The intense silence in the room was testament of the strength of each story, the tears and laughter proof of the sincerity and sense of humour and the many standing ovations proof that these older GLBTI people are still strong role models trying to make and maintain change for those coming after them.

It inspired me to always try finding someone who can speak of their experiences from the heart.

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