Grant: Meetings, Planning and Dissemination Grant: Gender, Sex and Health

The invitational Out in Home Care workshop explores issues of access related to in-home health care for members of Toronto's lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) communities. The workshop will disseminate outputs emerging from Phase 1 of a multi-phase interdisciplinary research collaboration, conducted by the workshop organizers, that used a gender-based diversity approach to explore LGBT in-home health service access. A draft access and equity framework developed from the research findings will serve as the foundation for the proposed workshop. Home care sector key stakeholder participants will review and revise the draft framework during faciliated large group and break-out sessions in order to co-create a practical access and equity tool. The goal is for home care provider agencies to create a tool that will enable them to evaluate their policy and practice in relation to service access and equity for diverse LGBT populations, for example in relation to client intake forms, staff education, and other key issues informed by the literature. The workshop will result in scholarly, professional/practice and LGBT-community deliverables: 1) an evidence-informed and consensus-based access and equity tool for home care provider organizations 2) a written report of the workshop proceedings and emergent access and equity tool; 3) distribution of the report to key stakeholder participants, non-participating local, provincial and federal health decision-makers and electronic postings on the Toronto Central Community Care Access Centre and Rainbow Health Ontario; 4) a public launch of the report with open invitation to hospital- and community-based health services associated with in-home care including LGBT-specific health and social care services; and 5) the development and publication of a peer-reviewed article.