A great end to this year’s programme of bespoke Allies workshops focussing on each of the five academic Colleges of the university. Participants were equally split between professional services (admin, support staff, student services) and academics (teaching, research and clinical) and this made for a really varied discussions in the breakout rooms.
I covered the key issues around the student and staff LGBTQ experience: history of legal protection, terminology and initials and crucially why it’s still really tough for students and staff to come out in an area where networking is so important and how challenging it is to manage the relationship with patients a an LGBTQ person. We finished with an action-planning session where we looked tat exactly what practical steps an Ally can take to make LGBTQ students and staff at the very least feel like they are acknowledged and their challenges are understood.