PP Week 23 - How Can The Psychological Professions Best Serve the LGBTQIA+ Communities?

On Tuesday 14th November 2023, the Psychological Professions Network South East region delivered an online event:

How Can the Psychological Professions Best Serve the LGBTQIA+ Communities?

This session provided an insightful discussion featuring people with lived experience, psychological professional insight and those that train professionals to increase LGBTQIA+ allyship within the NHS.

The session included a pre-recorded video in which members of the LGBTQIA+ communities discussed their experiences of healthcare. These experiences covered positive experiences of allyship towards the LGBTQIA+ communities by healthcare providers, as well as poor experiences of health care provision and its impact upon them.

The second part of the sessions was a pre-recorded interview with Dr Jamie Willo (Children and Adolescent Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist). Dr Jamie Willo is also the LGBTQ+ gender identity awareness and inclusion training lead for Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust. They discussed their journey to developing and facilitating LGBTQ+ and gender identity awareness training and their views on how to foster an environment of positive and safe healthcare for people from the LGBTQIA+ communities.

Lastly, there was a live conversation with Professor Allàn Laville (Dean for Diversity, and Inclusion at the University of Reading), Dr Bill Tiplady (PPN-SE Co Chair) and Beth (Expert by Experience) exploring what Psychological Professions can do to support the healthcare of LGBTQIA+ communities.

Professor Allàn Laville has been the author of several publications including exploring the importance of awareness and understanding for the LGBT+ communities in clinical practice and exploring LGBT mental health and recommendations in clinical practice. He also won the 2019 Reading Student Union Award for Diverse and Inclusive Teaching Excellence.

The session attracted 177 attendees from a range of Psychological Professions, health care, social care, policy makers and the public.

‘For me personally and professionally this was an incredibly rewarding and enriching experience. The expert by experience video was amazingly powerful, my thanks to all involved in creating it.’

‘Thank you, this has been a really great session, I have learnt a lot!’

‘Seeing the work done by Jamie Willo and their presence in the profession was inspiring for me. It offered evidence that it is possible to do this work and be a visible trans person in my own career.’

‘I have already changed my signature to add pronouns, and will make sure I wear my rainbow lanyard having heard how important this is for those initial contacts’

‘Not a practitioner but I’m considering becoming one as it seems more understanding and empathy is needed in this field in order to better support LGBTQ+ people’

‘Although I am not a clinician, I am engaged with the LGBT training training team. I found this session extremely enabling, educational and empowering.’

We are currently gathering feedback from the event and would be grateful for this to be completed by anyone who did attend, whether you attended the whole or part of the event. Find the Evaluation link here: https://forms.office.com/e/T52Z8ncPfF

You will be able to view the video of this session on the PPN website shortly.