Thank you for your interest in our study, Queering Mental Health Supports in Canada.
About the Project
This national multi-year project seeks to identify critical mental health care and support gaps and ensure that 2SLGBTQI individuals’ unique needs for mental health and well-being are addressed. The Queering Mental Health Supports in Canada project will achieve this through:
- The provision of basic training to industry professionals
- Foundational research (including a national survey, regional focus groups with both 2SLGBTQI individuals and mental health service providers, and a community consultation event)
- The development of evidence-based and context-specific training and resources
- Partnership building
- Project evaluation
Project Updates
Data collection for this project is now complete. Over the last few months, we conducted a national survey of over 300 2SLGBTQI individuals across Canada and focus groups with 42 2SLGBTQI people and 19 mental health service providers. Together, the national survey and focus groups explore the various factors which influence health and well-being, the strategies 2SLGBTQI people are using to protect and maintain their mental health and well-being, as well as how we can improve mental health services and supports for 2SLGBTQI people in Canada.
We have exciting news! On January 19, 2023, the QMH Research Team hosted a virtual community consultation event attended by 34 2SLGBTQI individuals and service providers from across the country. We had a full agenda, including presentations, Q & As, breakout rooms, and an interactive virtual exercise. During the first part of the day, Egale’s research team presented the key findings from the focus groups and national survey held throughout 2022. After lunch, we reconvened to discuss a series of questions in breakout rooms. The purpose of these breakout rooms was to receive guidance and input into the training and resources we plan to offer to mental health and social service providers across Canada within the next year. The topics we covered in the breakout rooms included:
- strategies for implementing culturally responsive practices
- addressing distinct and intersectional realities of seeking and accessing mental healthcare (e.g., in non-urban centres)
- creating a trauma-informed training
- strategies for service providers to meaningfully connect and serve currently excluded service seekers
- strategies for ensuring learning integration and long-term changes in service delivery
- ideas regarding partnerships between individuals and organizations to better support 2SLGBTQI service seekers and 2SLGBTQI service providers
Here are some key takeaways from the many rich conversations we had over the course of the day:
- Egale’s training must be rooted in a strengths-based, trauma-informed, anti-racist, anti-oppressive, and intersectional approach.
- Relationship- and trust-building is an important part of cultural responsiveness and being a safer mental healthcare provider.
- 2SLGBTQI people seeking mental healthcare have diverse needs that evolve over the life course and are dependent on a wide range of factors, including geographical location, ethnicity, income, disability, and age. Because of this diversity, there is a need for specialized training, services, and care: no ‘one size fits all approach’!
- Egale’s training needs to include a comprehensive evaluative component that assesses what learners have changed in their practice and service delivery over time.
This feedback on our proposed training tool and resources has been instrumental, and we will be integrating what everyone so generously shared as we’re developing the training over the next few months! Please stay tuned for our research report, which will be uploaded to this site and will include a lot more information on what everyone shared with us.
Project updates, including data briefs and findings summaries, will be uploaded to the site periodically.
Questions or comments?
This research study is being conducted by Kim Seida, PhD (candidate), Senior Research Officer, Mental Health at Egale Canada. If you have any questions about the study or have any concerns, please contact Kim Seida at kseida@egale.ca. You can also call Kim at (437) 900-1602. Please state your phone number in your message and we will get back to you. Concerns about the project can also be directed to CREO (email: creo@communitybasedresearch.ca | Phone number: 1-888-411-2736).