Another Busy Day Today

I am at a social work conference on aging that is sponsored by the Connecticut chapter of the National Association of Social Workers (NASW). I’m interested in aging for two reasons, the first is that I am old enough to be on Medicare and the second reason is that I am on a committee to come up with guidelines for LGBT Elder care. I the committee is made up of the State Commission on Aging and a number of NGOs including the Connecticut TransAdvocacy Coalition (CTAC) which I am representing.

The first workshop that I’m attending is,

LGBT Aging 101:
What you need to know about lesbian, gay, bisexual, & transgender older adults and caregivers

Many mainstream elder care providers have limited knowledge of the psychosocial, cultural, and economic issues facing lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender older adults and caregivers. Today’s LGBT elders came of age in an era when explicit discrimination from families, employers, landlords, neighbors, faith communities, and government were accepted as part of the “homosexual experience.” The most successful strategies were to remain invisible and secretive and to distrust those institutions that many heterosexuals assume are in place to help them, such as healthcare facilities, the government, and churches. With up to 75% of LGBT older adults living alone, 80% without a partner/spouse, and 90% without children, most LGBT elders lack informal networks of care and are in greater need of formal service providers. However, given their history, many LGBT older adults are wary of engaging with professionals and would rather go without. This workshop will enable participants to learn how they can utilize innovative approaches to engaging this population, some of whom may be invisible consumers of their services already. These efforts work to ensure that LGBT older adults feel safe to bring their “whole selves” when working with elder care professionals and that these professionals feel competent and confident when working with this underserved population.

And it is given by a woman from LGBT Aging Project in Boston, MA, it should be interesting to see how much they talk about the “T.”

The other workshop is,

The New Face of Senior Centers: Preparing for the New Age and New Trends

Since their early beginnings in the 50’s, as a solution to the isolation and malnutrition faced by community dwelling older adults, to today, Senior Centers have been evolving to support the independence, well-being, and social inclusion of older adults who live in the community. Now, more than ever, this continuing evolution is critical to ensure both the ongoing relevance of Senior Centers and their capacity to deliver services and programs to people where they live.
This workshop will cover some of the ways that Senior Centers have met the challenges, how new models have emerged, and what the future holds for Senior Centers. The panel presentation will include a review of statewide and national trends in the field and best practice programming. Special attention will be focused on social work practice within the environment including information on individual and group practice such as psycho educational groups, support groups, reminiscence and life review therapy, movement and expressive art modalities, and holistic mental health screening programs.

I’m attending this workshop because it is given by one of the committee members.

As the transgender baby boomers population ages we will be using the senior centers and the nursing homes more and more, and the big question is how will we be treated? What ward will they put us in? The ward that matches our birth gender or our gender identity. Some other questions are how well will we integrate in to the non-LGBT community at senior centers and nursing homes, will we be shunned? The goal of the committee is to come up with a guideline of “Best Practices” to help answers these questions for LGBT Elders.

I am thinking about attending a meeting on photography at my local senior center, it meets every Friday and I’m going to give them a call and to see when they meet or how many usually attend the meeting. For one thing it will help me see for myself how some of the questions are answered now. How will the staff handle a trans-woman and how will the clients handle a trans-woman?

Update 6:30PM
The first workshop was very good, it wasn't what I thought it was going to be about, it was more a LGBT 101. However, I learned somethings that I want to incorporate into my workshop.

The other workshop I skipped, I didn't think it would cover anything that I could use and it was a beautiful day out and I decided I would rather be outside than sitting inside so I stayed for lunch and left afterward. I did meet a former classmates and also some other social workers that I knew and said "Hi."