industry & reform
For many older LGBTI people, their home has largely been a
safe place – possibly the one place where they can go and be
safe. By needing to access services and have them coming to
your home, it means that safe place may not be so safe and may
potentially be violated.
There was some recent research done here at La Trobe
University called Rainbow Ageing, which found an overwhelming
preoccupation and fear of going into residential aged care, and
there didn’t seem to be much knowledge about those other
support services.
We also know that many older LGBTI people often don’t have an
advocate, and an advocate is really important as you age, and also
if you find yourself in hospital or a range of other situations.
By and large, there seems to be, from the research, a real anxiety
about needing to ask for assistance, and knowing where to find
that assistance.
From what you’ve seen, how do carers or nurses in aged care
facilities cope with the LGBTI community and residents?
I think things are changing. I came to be working in and
around LGBTI issues and inclusivity from when I was working
in community aged care myself, and our service developed
knowledge and capacity to be LGBTI inclusive and then,
ultimately, went on to get the first rainbow check. We started
doing work potentially around 10 years ago, but got the rainbow
check in 2012.
At that point in time, there seemed to be an apathy or a
misunderstanding – an attitude of “Well, we don’t need to do this
because we won’t have any LGBTI clients” or “We don’t have any
LGBTI residents living here”.
People were coming to that conclusion based on a range of
different variables, but it just seemed to me that services were
provided in a very heteronormative and cisgendered approach,
which I think is changing.
In 2012, the federal government released the first national
LGBTI ageing and aged care strategy. And while that didn’t require
services to actually do anything, it certainly raised awareness
about a range of issues and potentially what services could do.
That strategy was replaced at the end of 2017 with the Aged Care
Diversity Framework. And, just recently, the LGBTI action plans
have been released, one for consumers and one for aged care
providers. That will provide a bit of a roadmap I think for service
providers, and has really worked to elevate that knowledge.
We don’t hear as much as we used to that “We don’t have any
LGBTI people in our service or accessing our service”. Things are
slowly changing, but we still have a long way to go.
Because of the royal commission, everything within the aged
care framework is under the spotlight and up for debate.
What do you think needs to change to make aged care more
inclusive going forward?
Well, it starts at the top – so organisational commitment and
action – and then that flowing down through the different layers
of services and, of course, at direct service delivery.
I think one of the challenges that keeps coming up is that
services say, “Oh, well, that’s great. We can educate our staff,”
but by and large, we have other residents that grew up in those
times of social stigma and discrimination and were possibly
the perpetrators of that discrimination, or at least held the view
that LGBTI people didn’t belong or weren’t welcome in a range
of social settings.
And then that’s translated back into the residential aged care
setting, where you potentially have LGBTI and heterosexual people
in the same facility.
I think that is a challenge. It was only yesterday that a service
provider bought that up with me and said, “Our staff are great,
but we have some older people in our service who won’t buy this.
How do we make our service a safe place for everyone?”
It’s a real challenge, but it’s not something that’s
insurmountable. It’s about ensuring that we articulate to everyone
accessing services that all people are welcome; that there is a
resident or client code of conduct that everyone is aware of;
that we celebrate diversity broadly but also around LGBTI issues,
within a setting so that everyone has an understanding of the lived
experience and history of LGBTI people; that they are welcome at
services and have a right to access services.
Sam, Silver Rainbow was formed in 2013. Did that come about
because of a realisation that LGBTI needs were not being met
in the aged care sector?
SE: That was part of it. We had the Productivity Commission
investigation into aged care, and part of the report they produced
said LGBTI elders are a group that are not being considered or
having their needs addressed within the aged care system. This
was the first group to identify the issue.
Rising out of that, we had the Living Longer Living Better
reforms under the government, and they put some funding
towards LGBTI elders and elder people. From that, we were
successful in getting the tender. We were just an ageing project
then – the name Silver Rainbow came a little later.
What then happened was a large consultation nationally, and we
developed the first LGBTI ageing and aged care strategies, which
ran from 2013 to 2017. We were funded to deliver on some of the
actions in that.
Silver Rainbow is described as giving national coordination
and support for promoting the wellbeing of LGBTI elders.
What does that encompass?
We do LGBTI awareness training with aged care providers, and the
aged care assessment teams regional assessment services. We do
that through our partners in every state and territory, and that’s
kind of an introduction to what you need to do to be inclusive in
the care you deliver.
Initially, there was just an online module. We’ve now expanded
so everyone does the ‘101’ online module, then face-to-face
training, which gives you more depth about how to work with
LGBTI elder people. We’re now developing five specific modules
looking at the needs of each group in much more depth than the
general training can do.
The other side of Silver Rainbow, which is predominantly my
work, is working with the government, peak bodies and other
organisations so that whenever a policy, legislation or something
is changing, the needs of LGBTI elders and elder people are
included within those changes.
We look at the potential impacts and what they are missing in
developing this policy that might impact on elder people. How
do we ensure their needs and issues are included and considered
within those documents?
We work closely with the other LGBTI organisations across
Australia. And whenever we can, we like to get out and talk to
LGBTI elders and older people – they certainly had a big part to
play in the new action plans.
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