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 started with a needs assessment of teachers/trainers and learners in terms of LGBT+ teaching and learning practice, this identified the specific needs in the participating counties. National and international policies and guidelines were also 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 was 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 created permanent open leaning resources. On the other hand, the learning tools and resources were 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 was 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 was naturally opened to anybody across the globe who wishes to subscribe to it, however, a cap of 600 participants applied. To attract potential users for the MOOC and to promote the project products, six national seminars, were organised in the partners’ countries, where 175 participants learned how to use training, curriculum, resources , MOOC methodology and content, to create new trainings or new MOOCs. In addition, the MOOC was 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
Therefore, this project aimed to promote and support the social inclusion of LGBT+ people in need of care through making a more LGBT+ inclusive health and social care curriculum for educational institutions that prepare future health and social care workers/professionals to work with LGBT+ people. By exchanging good practice, including good practices in learning and teaching by developing tailored educational resources and pedagogies, we improved the knowledge and competencies of health and social care professionals in the area of LGBT+ affirmative practices. By enhancing skills, knowledge, and competencies, practitioners will be in a position to develop a culture of support, openness, and respect for LGBT+ identities. The main idea behind the project was to promote LGBT+ awareness within health and social care education, as well as going beyond education and training and reaching out to local communities that support LGBT+ people, families, and service users that wanted to learn more about the acceptance of LGBT+ issues.
The project was built upon previous IENE projects (IENE 1-8, http://ieneproject.eu/). The project aimed to enable teachers/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. We developed a culturally competent and compassionate LGBT+ curriculum which was delivered through a MOOC which was aimed at health and social care teachers/trainers, workers, professionals, and learners across Europe and the globe. Research has demonstrated that LGBT people experience social exclusion while interacting with care providers and that their life stories and relationships are overlooked and undervalued (Higgins et al 2011; Almack et al 201O). In some cases, they experience direct discrimination within health and social care environments. Therefore it was important to address this gap in the teaching and learning aspect of health and social care as well as beyond education.