Developing a culturally competent and compassionate LGBT+ curriculum in health and social care education Erasmus Project

Project Title

Developing a culturally competent and compassionate LGBT+ curriculum in health and social care education

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for vocational education and training

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Social dialogue; Inclusion – equity; Health and wellbeing

Project Summary

Evidence shows there is a need to ensure that health and social care professionals are capable to deliver care and support to a diverse population (EHRC, 2010). However, issues with professional conduct and discrimination against Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender (LGBT+) people in health and social care, continue to exist in the UK (Stonewall, 2015) and most probably in most EU countries.
This unsatisfactory position indicates the need to ensure that health and social care professional education includes exploration of LGBT+ issues, in order to enable health professionals to provide quality services which are free from prejudice to this population. However, there are numerous challenges which the educators must address and overcome in order to achieve this aim, including ignorance and fear, lack of confidence; negative religious, cultural and personal views; the lack of a learning culture that values diversity, and so on (Davy et al, 2015; Pezzella & Carr, 2016).

Research suggests that specific training on LGBT+ issues may result in better knowledge and skills of the health and social care workforce, which reduces the heteronormative and cisgendered (when a person’s sense of personal identity and gender corresponds with their birth sex) communication between providers and LGBT+ people, as well as diminishing the feelings of stigma and discrimination experienced by LGBTQ+ people (Sekoni, Gale, Manga‐Atangana, Bhadhuri, & Jolly, 2017). Despite this, there seems to be a lack of covering in LGBT+ health needs in the health and social care curriculum. Hence, there are limited resources and teaching material on the LGBT+ issues.

The project “Developing a culturally competent and compassionate LGBT+ curriculum in health and social care education“ aims to enable teacher/trainers of theory and practice to enhance their skills regarding LGBT+ issues and develop teaching tools to support the inclusion of LGBT+ issues within health and social care curricula. The newly culturally competent and compassionate LGBT+ curriculum will be delivered though a MOOC which is aimed at health and social care teachers/trainers, workers, professionals and and learners across Europe and worldwide.

The project will start with a needs assessment of teachers/trainers and learners in terms of LGBT+ teaching and learning practice, this will identify the specific needs in the participating counties. National and international policies and guidelines will also be explored by the project and taken into account when developing the learning/teaching resources and the online MOOC course.

The MOOC is an innovative training model using based on the Papadopoulos (2014) model for “Culturally Competent Compassion” (CCC). The module provides a logical and easy to follow structure based on its four constructs “Culturally Aware and Compassionate Learning”, “Culturally Knowledgeable and Compassionate Learning”, “Culturally Sensitive and Compassionate Learning”, “Culturally Competent and Compassionate Learning”.

For each construct a learning/teaching tool will be created, organised in user friendly form with links to additional resources, you tube videos, animations and quizzes and posted on the project learning platform in the form of easy to navigate course, available in all partners’ languages. This approach will create permanent open leaning resources. On the other hand, the learning tools and resources will be used in the development of the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC). Due to the nature of this innovative pedagogical approach of co-learning through co-creation, based on digital integration of learning. The duration of the availability of the course is limited during the lifetime of the project. The permanent availability of the resources created for the MOOC will enable institutions to create their own MOOCs in the future.
The MOOC will be piloted with a minimum of 30 participants during the facilitator training (C1). The MOOC will be delivered to 140 participants, specifically recruited by the partner organisations. It will naturally opened to anybody across the globe who wishes to subscribe to it, however, a cap of 600 participants will apply.

To attract potential users for the MOOC and to promote the project products, six national seminars, will be organised in the partners’ countries, where 175 participants will learn how to use training, curriculum, resources , MOOC methodology and content, to create new trainings or new MOOCs. In addition, the MOOC will be advertised on social media platforms, websites of partner organisations, mailing lists.

The MOOC offers an innovative approach to learning and in this project a better opportunity to raise awareness about LGBT+ issues regional, European and international level.

The project contributes to the improve the quality of care provided by health and social care workers by enhancing their skills and knowledge to recognise and respond to the needs of LGBT+ individuals

Project Website

http://www.iene-lgbt.com

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 267998 Eur

Project Coordinator

MIDDLESEX UNIVERSITY HIGHER EDUCATION CORPORATION & Country: UK

Project Partners

• Asociatia EDUNET
• St. Augustinus Fachkliniken
• UNIVERSIDAD DE ALMERIA
• TECHNOLOGIKO PANEPISTIMIO KYPROU
• SYDDANSK UNIVERSITET
• UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI ROMA LA SAPIENZA