Older LGBTQ+ people and Social Care repository
SCIE has launched a repository that includes a range of knowledge about older LGBTQ+ people – about their lives, needs and their experiences with social care.
This is part of the LGBTQ+ Older Adult Social Care Assessment (LOASCA) project, led by the University of Birmingham and the repository will be built up over time. This is a constantly evolving field of knowledge with some gaps, but this compendium will direct you to the key knowledge currently available in the UK.
Older people (65+ years) are the largest age group accessing adult social care services (Kings Fund, 2019) and as such also make up the largest LGBTQ+ group engaging with these services. Issues of sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) are often missed by social care workers (WEC, 2019) or, if perceived, are not engaged with because of a lack of knowledge or concerns of morality (Schaub et al, 2017; Bradbury-Jones et al, 2020). Our knowledge about LGBTQ+ people contains significant gaps; one prominent area is about their social care interactions. While some research has explored the public service experiences of LGBTQ+ individuals (see below), there is little research exploring how social care workers engage with and understand the needs of LGBTQ+ people needing care and support (Abbott, 2017; Moriarty and Manthorpe, 2016).