June 2011 - Our Voice in Action

The Public Health Alliance (PHA) for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transsexual, Transgender, Two-Spirit, Intersex, Queer, Questioning and Allied Equity has been working for the past several years on the outstanding recommendations from the “Trans Health Project” (2003) and “Improving the Access and Equity to Public Health Programs for Bisexuals” (2003). The final recommendation is to investigate changing professional education and practice for sexual minorities. The core group in PHA has founded and supported the Rainbow Nursing Interest Group, an interest group of the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario. This group is working to have RNAO develop Best Practice Guidelines for the support of LGBT nurses and clients.

Over the past few years we have developed and recently revised the manual: “A Positive Space is a Healthy Place:  making your community health centres, public health units, or community agencies inclusive to those of all sexual orientations and gender identities.”  We have provided “Positive Space” workshops in Waterloo, London, at the Association of Community Health Centres annual conference and, most recently, York Region.  About 60 people attended the March workshop in Newmarket and the evaluations were excellent.  We received a wonderful letter from one of the participants who stated:” The workshop was genuinely life changing for me in a most positive regard. Even though I have a brother who identifies himself as a gay man that never affected me. I just accept him for who he is. However, I have never had the eye opening experience like I received last week. I cannot thank you enough for inviting me to broaden my horizons and change my outlook on life as a whole. My thought process is no longer ignorant on the views and ideas I had on LGBTTTIQQIA individuals. I never even knew my thinking was ignorant! Thankfully, I am now much more aware and truly thank OPHA for giving me this incredible gift. In addition, Marcus was an absolute incredible influence in my change of views. Please thank him generously on my behalf.

I honestly cannot impress upon you enough as to how the Positive Space Workshop has changed me. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. We are also planning to do follow-up evaluations of the train-the-trainer model of the workshops we presented in London in 2010 and in Waterloo in 2009, as well as the workshop in Newmarket this year.  We plan to send a survey to all the participants of the previous workshops to see if the one day training resulted in any changes in their workplace and whether they are using the information or tools now.”

Our project for the coming year is to review the Ontario Public Health Standards to assess for inclusivity relating to those of all sexual orientations and gender identities. We are hoping to work with OPHA’s Board of Directors to support any necessary changes to these standards.