Partners

Stichting Nationaal Ouderenfonds

Stichting Nationaal Ouderenfonds (National Foundation for the Elderly, NFE), is a charity that promotes quality of life for older persons in the Netherlands. The primary focus of NFE is on preventing isolation, reflected by the Forget-Me-Not logo. NFE aims to combat social isolation of older people. LGBT older people often have a higher risk of social exclusion than others. Some LGBT people have been hiding their identity for the largest part of their lives, often they have reduced social circles and little family. NFE aims to support LGBT older people by raising awareness among care providers about LGBT older people needs. NFE offers trainings and support sessions for care professionals and organizations to respectfully handle sexual diversity within their organization and become more LGBT friendly and open. NFE has developed teaching material for educational institutions on care and wellbeing and provides guest lectures in VET and HEI institutions across the Netherlands. NFE develops and offers teachers guidance to raise the subject in the classroom, it provides case studies that can be used in the class room. Finally NFE provides guidance to older LGBT people to stay socially included and find care services that are gay friendly and supportive in their LGBT identity. NFE promotes awareness about LGBT older people and supports their rights through the Elderly Ombudsman.

Outhouse

Outhouse is a vital community and resource centre for LGBT people in Dublin and the only resource of its kind to the older population. Its primary goal is to offer a safe space for LGBT people to organise, develop and claim rights – civil, social and cultural. As a central hub of activity, it offers many services to the LGBT community. There is a wide range of individuals and groups that meet at Outhouse, from Acting Out (resident drama club) to LGBT Lawyers to GOLD (peer support group for the over 55's). Services that are provided include an information, signposting and support service, peer support and personal development groups, outreach and training, as well as health and well-being, and leisure activities. There is also a café, library, a small venue and meeting rooms. In addition, a number of other services such as the Gay Switchboard Dublin, Gay Men's Health Service (GMHS) and the Dublin Lesbian Line are based at Outhouse. It has 4.5 full-time members of staff, and a team of volunteers who facilitate over 40,000 users of its services each year.

University of Ljubljana

University of Ljubljana (UL-SL) is a very large university, with 50,000 students, taking over 300 different undergraduate and postgraduate study programmes. It is the central and largest educational and research institution in Slovenia with 30% of all registered researchers. It is listed amongst the top 500 universities in the world according to the ARWU Shanghai, Times THES-QS and WEBOMETRICS rankings.

The Faculty of Social Work (FSW) is a member of UL – SL and the only social work higher education establishment in Slovenia. Teaching in all three cycles of the study is based on scientific research. The Faculty which was established in 1955 (as The School for Social Workers) has produced since then basic forms and methods of contemporary social work such as counselling, group work, community work, and work with families. Its achievements in voluntary work, action research, and qualitative research in general have played an important part in Slovenian social sciences. It has developed work with older people, women, young people, people in mental distress, disabled people, and ethnic minorities and contributed to innovations such as social first aid, home help, group homes, safe houses, and others. Through its network the Faculty has coordinated or participated in many international projects. The Faculty publishes an academic journal, Socialno delo. We have experience with leading large national projects as well as in coordinating EU projects. As an important partner to various Slovene ministries and various governmental institutions (ombudsman, agency for minorities, etc.) in developmental innovative social projects in Slovenia, we a have vast experience in developing evidence based strategies and actions for change on a local, national as well as cross-national level.

As a higher educational institutions on tertiary level, it provides teaching in the area of social work, social care, mental health, LGT, women and minorities. It teaches students enrolled in all three cycles of social work studies in the faculty. Also it provides addtional staff training to professionals in the work place.

As in Slovenia social and health care is only taught in higher educational institutions, the University of Ljubljana will be able to provide good practices from its faculty of social work.

The Faculty of Social Work has strong expertise in the area of social justice, diversity studies, women studies, LGBT studies, migration and asylum seeking practices, critiques of heteronormativity, and other areas relevant to this project.

The faculty has participated in a project where it has performed a qualitative study conducted by researchers from Germany, Sweden and Slovenia carried out in three European countries. The survey comprises interviews with children and young people between the ages of eight and eighteen years growing up in different LGBT families and attending various educational institutions, from kindergarten to high school. At the forefront of research, their stories, their knowledge, practices and strategies of coping with school everyday life. Attention is drawn to the image of heteronormative families in school and kindergarten groups in order to investigate homophobia and discrimination which is in these groups often experienced by children of same-sex families).

Stichting Consortium Beroepsonderwijs

SCB is an association of vocational educational institutions in the Netherlands, that collaborate in this non-profit foundation. The main objective is to provide education by educators. The consortium combines 160 vocational educational institutions, 40 regional vocational educational institutions and several private vocational educational institutions. SCB focuses on VET in different areas, where care and wellbeing is the largest. Approximately 3/4 of the VET's in care and wellbeing in the Netherlands use the teaching material, knowledge and expertise of SCB. This makes SCB the perfect partner to obtain a big impact in the Dutch VET level. SCB provides the exams and qualifications for care and wellbeing. It designs teaching material that is used to prepare students on their exams. The main method used for the design of the educational material and exams is HUBO (Haalbaar - Uitvoerbaar - Organiseerbaar). Besides the products, SCB also provides the related trainings for teachers and staff and advise for implementation in the institutions.

SCB aims to enhance the skills and competences of both teachers and students on sexual diversity of LGBT older people in care and wellbeing and to increase the acceptance of LGBT people in care surroundings. It aims to provide teachers with best practices to bring this subject to the classroom and discuss this with students in order for them to apply these skills and compenteces in their future job as care professional.

Trinity college Dublin

The University of Dublin, Trinity College Dublin (TCD) was founded in 1592 and is recognized internationally as Ireland's premier university. It is ranked in 104th position by the QS World University Rankings 2018 and number 1 in Ireland. In 2016, Trinity was admitted to the League of European Research Universities (LERU). The College is committed to excellence in both research and teaching, to the enhancement of the learning experience of each of its students and to an inclusive College community with equality of access for all. The College's goal is to continue to disseminate knowledge and expertise to the benefit of the City of Dublin, Ireland and the international community. There are almost 17,000 registered students at TCD and research income is approximately €115m per annum.

The School of Nursing and Midwifery at Trinity has been ranked 1st in Ireland and 25th in the World in the QS World University Subject Rankings 2018. The School of Nursing and Midwifery's primary objective is to educate and prepare students to work as registered nurses and midwives. As the largest School of Nursing and Midwifery in Ireland, we have approximately 1200 undergraduate students, which provides considerable reach for testing and using best practice guidelines in this area. Our nurisng students study general nursing, general and children's nursing (integrated), mental health nursing and intellectual disability nursing which offers both a diversity of experience and context of care. Raising awareness of older LGBT people in care also speaks to our core philosophy of holism, equality and respect for uniqueness. In addition, nurses are in a key position to champion the rights and needs of minority groups such as older LGBT people and will benefit from competencies in this area.

University of Strathclyde

The place of useful learning

Founded in 1796 as 'a place of useful learning', we're a leading technological University with around 23,000 students from more than 100 nations. We've an international reputation for teaching excellence with a five-star Overall Rating in the QS Stars University Ratings.

Our campus is in the heart of Glasgow, one of the largest cities in the United Kingdom, and we're just a one-hour flight from London.

Middlesex university

Partner until 1st September 2019

Middlesex University is one of the top 500 universities in the world in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings and the only modern university in London to feature in the list. We are dedicated to unlocking potential and transforming the lives of our students. They are at the heart of everything we do and we’re proud of the rich diversity they bring to our campuses – it is this, which we use as inspiration for our work. Our legacy of pioneering new developments includes leading the field in work-based learning and transnational education. Our contributions to workforce innovation, include the North London Social Work Teaching Partnership (http://northlondonsocialwork.co.uk/), My Care Academy - a knowledge building digital community with Camden and Islington NHS Mental health Foundation Trust and Barnet, Enfield & Haringey Mental Health Trust (http://mycareacademy.org/). We are also driving technological innovation, including research on the use of robots in the care of older people.

Our School of Health and Education is a leading centre of academic excellence for professional programmes in social work, nursing, midwifery and teacher education and the Department of Mental Health and Social Work is a sector leader in the development of work-based learning and accreditation of vocational study. Our academic staff retain strong links with practice and have a number of specialisms: addictions; dementia; dual diagnosis; CBT; comorbidities; neonatal mental health, co-production, LGBTQIA, transcultural competence and prevention and management of violence and aggression. Members of the BEING ME project team have a track record in LGBTQ and ageing research and practice near research through the design and evaluation of innovative pedagogies.

We support and enable practitioners to enhance and develop their professional skills, applying psychosocial and person-centred thinking to their tasks and role at work. We emphasise the importance of reflective professional development, academic excellence and high levels of skill in undertaking interventions working in partnership with service users and carers; valuing interdisciplinary and interagency knowledge and approaches. We have had a long-standing commitment to service user empowerment and recovery with experience of developing national and international programmes with a research centre for Co-Production in Mental Health and Social Care Research Centre, alongside The Drug and Alcohol Research Centre (DARC) (http://drugandalcoholresearchcentre.org/) and the Research Centre for Transcultural Studies in Health (https://www.mdx.ac.uk/our-research/centres/research-centre-for-transcultural-studies-in-health).