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The National Resource Center on LGBT Aging is conducting its second annual survey to elicit feedback on its efforts to reach key audiences and deliver critical services. The survey also asks for suggestions for resources to help improve the lives of LGBT older adults in the nation.

Anyone who completes the approximately 10-minute survey will be entered to win a $50 gift certificate to Amazon.com. The survey deadline is February 6.

PHI, one of the Resource Center’s 10 partners, developed curricula and a training program for aging services providers and LGBT advocacy organizations. The Resource Center on LGBT is a project of Services & Advocacy for GLBT Elders (SAGE) and is funded by the Administration on Aging.

– by Deane Beebe

Logo of 2011 Pioneer Network National Conference

The Pioneer Network‘s annual conference will take place August 1-4 in St. Charles, Missouri, and will feature several sessions led by PHI experts.

Susan Misiorski, the national director of the PHI Training and Organizational Development Services team, and Kate Waldo, PHI organizational culture change specialist, will help guide day-long presentations during the four-day event.

PHI’s Cean Eppelheimer and Kathy McCollett will also present a 90-minute session on how to be an approachable leader.

According to the Pioneer Network’s website, the conference is the “only national conference devoted solely to culture change.”

Initiating Culture Change

Along with Joanne Rader of Rader Consulting, Misiorski will co-lead “Getting Started,” a day-long intensive session designed to help leaders of care facilities take the first steps toward culture change.

Misiorski and Rader will dispense practical advice to formal and informal leaders across care settings who are interested in de-institutionalizing services and individualizing care.

“For the last decade, the Pioneer Network conference has presented a great annual opportunity to spread the word about culture change,” said Misiorski, the founding president of the Pioneer Network’s board of directors.

“I hope that attendees will come away inspired to start their own culture-change journey — or, if they are already on the road to culture change, I hope they will redouble their efforts to implement organizational change,” she added.

Focus on LGBT Elders

Meanwhile, Waldo will co-lead a day-long intensive session entitled “Creating an Environment of Safety and Inclusion for LGBT Older Adults.”

During the session, Waldo and Hilary Meyer, the director of the National Resource Center on LGBT Aging, will present a curriculum designed to help staff, administrators, and volunteers at aging network organizations to provide better care for their LGBT residents.

The curriculum achieves those goals by:

• Teaching participants about LGBT older adults — their culture, their needs, their concerns.
• Identifying best practices to help LGBT elders feel safe and included in their aging networks.
• Identifying health disparities between LGBT and non-LGBT elders.
• Reviewing policy and practice areas to consider how to increase inclusiveness and safety for LGBT older adults.

Other Sessions

“Getting Started” and “Creating an Environment of Safety and Inclusion for LGBT Older Adults” are two of 13 all-day intensive sessions that conference-goers can choose to attend during the conference’s second day.

The topics of other intensive sessions include implementing culture change in a physically traditional facility; administering dining assistance for people with dementia; and sustaining culture change over the long term.

Shorter sessions and workshops will also be held throughout the event.

A full list of the intensive sessions can be found on the Pioneer Network’s website, along with a full conference schedule and registration information.

– by Matthew Ozga

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) elders face additional challenges beyond those associated with the typical aging process, according to two new reports.

One report is a survey of LGBT elders conducted by the National Senior Citizens Law Center, an organization that advocates for low-income older adults.

In the survey, the vast majority of LGBT seniors — 89 percent — said they believed that staff members working in long-term care facilities are likely to discriminate against LGBT residents due to their sexual orientation.

Additionally, 43 percent said they had personally experienced at least once instance of mistreatment in a long-term care facility because of their sexuality.

LGBT Elders Suffer Poorer Health

The second report (pdf), issued by the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, concludes that California’s aging LGBT population suffers greater rates of psychological distress, isolation, and physical health problems than heterosexuals.

Specifically, the UCLA report found that:

• A majority (50.5 percent) of older gay men in California live alone, compared with just 13.4 percent of heterosexuals.
• Lesbians are also more likely than heterosexual women to live by themselves (28.3 percent compared with 19.3 percent).
• Aging lesbians, gay men, and bisexual men and women are significantly more likely than older heterosexuals to feel psychological distress, to have a physical disability, or to be in poor health generally.
• Additionally, older gay and bisexual men are more likely to have heart disease and hypertension than aging heterosexual men.

Resource Center Could Help LGBT Elders

In the past, LGBT elders had few places to turn to for information specific to their needs. Last October, however, the organization Services & Advocacy for GLBT Elders (SAGE) — in collaboration with PHI and nine other organizations — launched the nation’s first National Resource Center on LGBT Aging.

The Resource Center recently debuted a new section devoted to resources for caregivers.

The Center also features articles, fact sheets, videos, and other resources geared toward LGBT elders, LGBT organizations, and aging providers.

– by Matthew Ozga

State and area agencies that assist elders must work harder to meet the needs of the aging LGBT community, according to a report (pdf) by the University of Minnesota and the PFund Foundation, an organization that advocates for LGBT rights.

The study surveyed 15 aging agency directors from Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and North Dakota. It found that eight of those 15 agencies offered LGBT-specific training for their workers. However, only one of the agencies offer targeted services for LGBT elders.

Nationally, roughly one-third of aging agencies have funded, or have offered to fund, LGBT training for their workers, the report found.

The authors of the report present numerous recommendations on how policymakers and service providers can better address the needs of LGBT elders.

In October, the organization Services & Advocacy for GLBT Elders (SAGE) inaugurated the nation’s first National Resource Center on LGBT Aging to address these same issues. SAGE’s resource center was launched with assistance from PHI.

– by Matthew Ozga

A policy brief published by the Direct Care Alliance explains how direct-care workers can help lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) elders live with dignity and independence.

Nancy F. McKenzie, Ph.D., the author of Supporting Direct Care Workers in Caring for Aging Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Individuals (pdf), notes that LGBT elders face numerous difficulties in obtaining quality long-term care: inequitable laws, social stigma, and institutional and personal prejudice.

Because of those obstacles, LGBT elders are more likely to face unnecessary complications related to aging. They are also more likely to die alone.

Promoting Equitable Care

McKenzie recommends several steps that policymakers and administrators of long-term care facilities can take to promote high-quality long-term care to their LGBT clients.

One recommendation is for administrators to develop LGBT programs and training for direct-care workers, aimed at eliminating any prejudices that those workers might have in dealing with LGBT elders.

McKenzie also suggests that administrators should ensure that their facilities are in compliance with state anti-discrimination laws, and that policymakers should advocate for LGBT-friendly legislation.

In a guest blog post at the Direct Care Alliance website, Michael Adams, executive director of Services & Advocacy for GLBT Elders (SAGE), praises the policy brief for “tackling these issues head-on and making a commitment to improving the lives of LGBT older adults.”

In October, SAGE, in partnership with 10 other LGBT-oriented organizations, launched the first-ever National Resource Center on LGBT Aging, funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’s Administration on Aging.

PHI is collaborating with SAGE and the other organizations involved with the resource center to create training curricula for LGBT and aging service providers.

An ‘Inherent Solidarity’

Throughout the paper, McKenzie argues that the direct-care workers and LGBT elders share an “inherent solidarity.”

She says that both groups are under-valued, under-resourced, and under-represented in mainstream society, and both are fighting to improve the conditions in which they work and live.

“As direct-care workers advocate for their own acknowledgment and legal and monetary protections, they can be stronger advocates for [LGBT] clients that are burdened with the same ‘invisibility,’” McKenzie writes.

– by Matthew Ozga

Working in partnership with 10 organizations, Services & Advocacy for GLBT Elders (SAGE) inaugurated the nation’s first National Resource Center on LGBT Aging, a technical assistance resource center dedicated to improving the quality of services and supports for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) older adults nationwide.

Curricula and Training

PHI was invited to become a partner in this ground-breaking initiative because of its expertise in curricula development and person-centered care training.

PHI will collaborate with SAGE and the other project partners to develop the Resource Center’s training curricula for both aging network providers and LGBT service providers.

PHI staff will also conduct train-the-trainer sessions with the Center’s core training partners and pilot testing to evaluate the effectiveness of the training curricula.

Serving the LGBT Elder Community

“Like most older adults, LGBT elders need services and supports to help them age successfully, but too often they don’t seek them from the aging service network due to fear of discrimination,” said PHI Organizational Culture Change Specialist Kate Waldo, who is working with the Resource Center and coordinating the project partners. “Yet, organizations that traditionally serve the LGBT community are often not ‘age-friendly,’ lacking the knowledge and skills necessary to serve elders.”

“PHI is addressing these profound gaps by developing curricula and providing person-directed care training that honor the whole person and celebrate diversity,” Waldo continued.

“It is critical that the aging network acknowledges that LGBT consumers are accessing their services. If it doesn’t, you are in effect making the LGBT community an invisible population that feels they have to hide an important aspect of their self-identity in order to feel safe — or go without needed services altogether,” Waldo said.

‘An Enormous Step Forward’

A key component of the new Center is its website that over time will provide LGBT elders and their loved ones with information on legal issues, caregiving, lifelong planning and housing, and other concerns.

“The launch of our National Resource Center on LGBT Aging is an enormous step forward for our aging lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities,” said Michael Adams, executive director at SAGE. “It speaks to the necessary attention that service providers of all types must place on supporting diverse older adults around the country.”

SAGE, the world’s largest and oldest organization dedicated to improving the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) older adults, launched the new Center in mid-October with a three-year grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration on Aging.

More information about the Resource Center and suggestions for further reading are available at PHI’s Training and Organizational Development Services blog.

– by Deane Beebe