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socialni in zdravstveni oskrbi Specifične značilnosti življenjskih potekov in preteklih izkušenj LGBT+ starih ljudi zahtevajo znanje in ozaveščenost zaposlenih v skrbstvenih poklicih. V članku s pomočjo mednarodne perspektive osvetlimo temeljne teme področja vključujoče oskrbe LGBT+ starih ljudi, s posebnim poudarkom na slovenskem kontekstu, in pri tem izčrpno uporabimo spoznanja evropskega projekta »Being me« (2018–2020). V projektu smo raziskovali dobre prakse na področju izobraževanja in razvili spletna učna gradiva ter pripomočke za zaposlene v socialni in zdravstveni oskrbi. Med načeli in pristopi, ki so nas vodili pri raziskovanju, so bili v ospredju poudarek na medpresečnosti, odpornosti, perspektivi moči, življenjskih zgodbah in sodelovanju z LGBT+ starimi ljudmi v vseh fazah projekta.\ud \ud (English)\ud The specific characteristics of life course and past experiences of LGBT+ old people require knowledge and awareness on the part of carers. In this paper, an international perspective to shed light on key issues in the field of inclusive care for LGBT+ older people is used, with a particular focus on the Slovenian context, drawing extensively on the findings of the European project “Being me” (2018–2020). In the project, we aimed to explore best practice in the area of education and to develop online learning materials and tools for social and health care workers. Among the principles and approaches that guided our research, the focus was put on intersectionality, resilience, strengths perspective, life stories, and collaboration with LGBT+ old people in all phases of the project.

Aim of the review: Research demonstrates that inequalities in outcomes on health and social wellbeing for LGBT+ older adults are perpetuated by a lack of inclusive services and cultural competence among the health and social care workforce. The aim of this review is to describe the educational interventions used to educate health and social care practitioners on the needs of older LGBT+ adults and the impact of such interventions on practitioners' knowledge, attitudes and competence. Search and review methodology: A systematic search of peer-reviewed papers published before February 2020 was conducted in the electronic databases MEDLINE, CINAHL, PsycINFO, EMBASE, ERIC, Social Sciences Full Text and Web of Science. The search resulted in a screening of 2509 papers with 9 matching the inclusion criteria which were rated using the MERSQI quality measure. Findings: Positive outcomes were demonstrated across the studies, especially an increase in knowledge. Increases in skills and attitudes was less evident, especially in studies using shorter and less diverse intervention designs. Findings suggest that interventions that incorporate diverse teaching strategies, especially interactive experiential activities such as storytelling and inclusion of LGBT+ older adults, leads to higher engagement, increased awareness and empathy in participants. Conclusions and implications: Professional and vocational education is an important tool to improve cultural competency. Findings suggest that educators need to diversify intervention contents, approach LGBT+ education from an interdisciplinary perspective and involve LGBT people in the design, delivery and evaluation of education. This may have a positive impact on transfer of learning into practice and provide a more sustainable approach in addressing LGBT+ ageing inequalities in practice settings. Findings also suggest that researchers need to develop more robust study designs such as randomized controlled trials and focus on the longitudinal effects of educational interventions, which could improve the quality of study designs. Ethical approval: Ethical approval was not necessary.

National analysis of violence against LGBTI + children in Slovenia. The research design for the Slovenian national report included 10 in-depth interviews, 72 online surveys and desk research. Our sample was selected on the basis of accessibility and expertise of our interviewees. All three members of the research team cooperated in recruiting the possible contributors and gathering data. In terms of experience working with LGBTI+ and gender non-conforming children and youth, we had a diverse sample. Some were experts on this knowledge, especially those working in LGBTI+ NGOs. Those having either personal experience (being LGBTI+) or having a family member that is LGBTI+ or gender non-conforming also seemed to have more knowledge and insight on this subject. The interviews were conducted between 28th of January and 26th of February 2020. They lasted from 45 minutes to 1h 13 minutes. Our sample was somewhat diverse, with age range of participants between 28 years and 60 years of age. 1 participant was 28 years old, 5 were in their 40s and 2 in their 50s. 7 interviewees identified as heterosexual, 1 as bisexual, 1 as gay, 1 as queer. 5 participants said they identify as a woman, 1 as a man, 2 persons as non-binary and 1 said she was assigned a female gender at birth but doesn’t identify with it so much. Except for the youngest participant, all of the interviewees were born in former Yugoslavia, of these 6 in Slovenia, 2 in Croatia and 1 gave no answer (presumably Slovenia). Six participants working in the areas of education, health and family are all employed in public services, while two participants from “public spaces” came from NGOs and two participants from media are employed in the private sector. Their professional roles were diverse. In the public services sector our respondents included: a psychologist working as a counsellor and assistant principal in elementary school, a teacher in secondary school, a gynecologist and sexologist working in a hospital, a nurse working in healthcare centre who is at the same time mother of an LGBTI+ person, asocial worker working with families in social work centre, a special pedagogue working in a special education school, but participating in our research as a mother of a trans child. In the NGO sector our participants were a social worker and master in gender studies working as a director of a Trans NGO and a master in social work working as a leader of a youth centre and programme coordinator. In the private sector (media) our two respondents were both journalists, the first in one of the biggest newspapers in Slovenia and the second, a director and editor of an online newspaper for children Projecte "Diversity and childhood: changing social attitudes towards gender diversity in children across Europe", finançat pel Programa de Drets, Igualtat i Ciutadania (2014-2020) de la Unió Europea (REC-RDAP-GBV-AG-2018-856680)

This report is based on our experiences of using a collaborative approach to identifying best practices for those involved in professional, vocational and community-based education and learning, in order to facilitate improved support for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) older people in health and social care. The best practices discussed here on learning and teaching, emerged from cross national collaboration and intercultural dialogue with a variety of stakeholders, including older LGBT people, educators, practitioners and learners using the World Café method. As one of the workstreams within the BEING ME European Project funded by EU Erasmus Plus (https://www.beingme.eu/), we aimed to promote and support the social inclusion of LGBT older people through positive interaction with educational institutions that prepare future professionals to work with older people. The best practices described here include a) identifying pedagogic approaches (the method and practice of teaching) b) generating examples of tailored educational resources c) recommendations on how to improve the knowledge and capabilities of future care professionals in the area of LGBT affirmative practices. Through a process of learning and exchange during two World Cafés, these areas were able to be more clearly articulated and should be read in conjunction with the BEING ME ‘Best Practice principles’ (https://beingme.eu/public/application/downloads/resources/being-me-best-practice-principles-20190212.pdf) which underpin good practice in the area of LGBT ageing care. \ud \ud Giving specific attention to identify ways of enhancing the skills, knowledge and capabilities of practitioners through education, should place them in a better position to develop a culture of support, openness and respect for LGBT identities which in turn are essential to LGBT older people's inclusiveness in care environments. The Best Practices Report provides the foundation for the development of the BEING ME educators online ‘toolkit’ aimed at both formal and informal learning settings and to a range of disciplines professions and vocations in health and social care.

The proposed Symposium is related to the Special Interest Group on Social Work and Extreme Events and is proposed by the Group initiators. Over the past year, we witnessed an almost unprecedented movement of people due to political conflict. Based on the figures by the EU Border Agency (Frontex), more than 500,000 refugees were detected at EU external borders in the first eight months of 2015. In the Spring of 2014, large scale and repeated flooding in South-East Europe (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia)\ud caused damage similar to that experienced during the political conflicts in the same region in the early 1990s.\ud The purpose of the Group and the proposed Symposium is to explore how and whether the impact of political conflicts and/or national disasters on social work can be explored through a joint title of ‘extreme events’. This is\ud relevant not solely because many countries experience one or even both types of extreme events, as noted above. The relevance and parallels are also encapsulated in the impact of such events on the variety of social work resources (from infrastructure to loss of life and limb) and the difference between the urgent/immediate responses during the extreme events and during long-term recovery.\ud Recently, a group of social work academics from a variety of countries affected by political conflicts and/or natural disasters in Europe and Asia (Australia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Greece, UK/Northern Ireland,\ud Slovenia and Sri Lanka) initiated a network to explore this theme. In parallel, the network also explores the frequently contested and difficult relationships\ud between the local social work practices and traditions with those of international development organisations, frequently active in countries affected by extreme events. It is hoped that the work within the network can inform\ud and improve the emergency protocols and subsequent post-extreme event reconstruction and development practices in relation to vulnerable groups (e.g. women, children without parental care, people with disabilities, older\ud people), as well as contribute to the growth of social work disciplinary knowledge on this theme. The Symposium is to help outline some of the thinking and work within the network to date, based on the studies conducted by the participants in their own contexts and as a group.\ud The focus of the Symposium will be on the methodological challenges this theme poses for research, both within particular countries, as well as through cross-national and/or comparative research. The current group is comprised of scholars from the countries affected by extreme events who hope to build on their current studies, explore them within the wider framework of extreme events and to initiate future joint research. The rationale for\ud local scholars’ participation stems from the need to enable mutual learning process, not aiming for a single, unified, outcome or finding – based on the lessons learnt to date from cross-national action research (Matthies et al.,\ud 2000).\ud The key findings from group discussions to date indicate concerns whether and how international, cross-country methodology can be developed which would allow for more meaningful knowledge sharing between social workers\ud and development practitioners in different countries. Possibilities to use ‘green social work’ and critical theory as relevant theoretical frameworks for international collaboration on this theme will be outlined. The findings to date also highlight a range of roles that social workers do or should employ during and after the extreme events, from targeted assistance to vulnerable groups to involvement in peace building and reconciliation.

The Emilia Project is an EU action research (6th FP) aimed at enhancing the social inclusion of people experiencing serius mental distress at eight demonstration sites across Europe focusing on education and employment opportunities. A key objective of the project is to improve the mainstreaming of gender and ethnicity at these sites since a lack of such mainstreaming adds to the already existing barriers to social inclusion emerging from the stigma attached to mental distress. The article describes the multy-stage strategy for monitoring gender, ethnicity and culture mainstreaming which was applied in the project. Its first phase involved the collection of data through questionaries reflecting standpoints of the personnel employed in the participating organisations on issues related to ethnicity and gender in their work place and their relevance for work in mental health organisations. On the basis of the findings each participating site had to construct its action plan for mainsteraming. The second phase is set to involve a similar research among service users. Most service providers participating in the first phase of research advocated the view that discrimination is caused by society at large, and that they only have little or no influence on reducing it. Yet the reality of the users of mental health services remains that of social discrimination and often abuse and social ignorance of their type of experience. Most of the personnel identified the need for additional training.The priority issues for training included acquiring knowledge on users' cultures, translation skills or the use of professional interpreters from foreign languages in communication with users, learning of the skills needed for work with users, victims of domestic violence and sexual abuse, and homophobia. Emilija je evropski akcijski raziskovalni projekt (šesti okvirni program), v katerega je vključenih enajst evropskih držav, osem pa jih projekt tudi izvaja. Projekt si prizadeva pospešiti socialno vključevanje ljudi z dolgotrajnimi težavami v duševnem zdravju na področju izobraževanja in zaposlovanja. Eden od ključnih ciljev projekta je tudi povečati občutljivost sodelujočih organizacij za vprašanje spola, etničnosti in kulture, saj neobčutljivost na ta vprašanja vnaša dodatno oviro za socialno vključevanje in krepitev moči. Članek opisuje večstopenjsko strategijo za spremljanje občutljivosti za vprašanja spolov, etničnih in kulturnih vprašanj, ki smo jih uporabili v tem projektu. V prvi fazi smo s pomočjo vprašalnikov zbrali podatke od zaposlenih v sodelujočih organizacijah o njihovih stališčih in vrednotah glede najbolj poudarjenih vprašanj spolov, etničnosti in kulture in o njihovi relevantnosti pri vsakdanjem delu v organizacijah duševnega zdravja.Sodelujoče organizacije so pri tem na podlagi rezultatov izdelale akcijske plane, v katerih so predvidele, kako bodo povečale občutljivost zaposlenih. V drugi fazi bomo naredili podobno raziskavo tudi med uporabniki. Osebje, ki je sodelovalo pri raziskavi, je večinoma zagovarjalo stališče, da je vir diskriminacije v širši družbi in da imajo le malo ali nič vpliva na to,da bi jo zmanjšali. Vendar pa je na drugi strani realnost uporabnikov taka,da je med njimi veliko žrtev diskriminacije in neredko zlorab in da še predobro vedo, da jih nihče noče slišati o njihovih izkušnjah. Večina osebja je izrazila potrebo po dodatnem izobraževanju. Prednostne teme za dodatno izobraževanje so bile informacije o kulturah, iz katerih izhajajo uporabnice in uporabniki, spretnosti prevajanja in uporabe prevajalcev iz tujih jezikov pri sporazumevanju z uporabniki, učenje spretnosti, potrebnih pri delu z uporabnicami in uporabniki, žrtvami družinskega nasilja in spolnih zlorab, in homofobija.

The article presents the significance of literary auto/biography as a means of resistance against pathologizing discourses and political silence that have long prevailed in speaking and writing about people on the margins of society who are often to be found amongst the users of social security services and of related professions. The author demonstrates that auto/biographies also have a great deal of intellectual potential and represent an important source for the research and training of professionals. Auto/biographies can be subversive and can expose the tabooed spaces, can enable access to hidden realities, can be a revisiting of experience as an author, and can strengthen the power of the narrator and the community of survivors. They can, however, have a different side: they can entrap the narrator in the prescribed scenario and strengthen the discourse of authority instead of that of the narrator. The article presents certain Slovene and foreign literary auto/biographies of women, of users of psychiatric services, of handicapped people and of drug users. Članek predstavi pomen literarnih avto/biografij kot sredstva upora proti patologizirajočim diskurzom in političnemu molku, ki so dolgo prevladovali v govoru in pisanju o ljudeh z roba družbe, ki jih pogosto najdemo med uporabniki socialnih služb in sorodnih strok. Avtorica dokazuje, da te avto/biografije nosijo tudi velik intelektualni potencial in predstavljajo pomemben vir za raziskovanje in učenje strokovnjakov. Avto/biografije so lahko subverzivne in razgrinjajo tabuizirane prostore, omogočajo dostop do skritih realnosti, so reavtorizacija izkušenj, krepijo moč pripovedovalke ali pripovedovalca in skupnost preživelih. Imajo pa lahko tudi drugo plat: pripovedovalca lahko ujamejo v predpisane scenarije in namesto pripovedovalca krepijo oblastne diskurze. V članku so predstavljene nekatere tuje in domače literarne avto/biografije žensk, psihiatričnih uporabnikov, hendikepiranih ljudi in uživalcev drog.

In social work context clients with their stories are strongly determined by their\ud very “client” position, the core of which is a certain “social problem”. Written\ud social work documents are often like a detailed list of user’s failures, mistakes,\ud weak sides, deficiencies. The focus of writing is often on confirming whether a\ud certain behaviour was appropriate or not. The author emphasises that written\ud documents are not just dead words in the paper, but a sort of act, an\ud intervention: they have real and actual power as professional opinions, reports,\ud etc. This article includes recent findings in researching this matter in Slovene\ud social work practice and suggests how to improve oral and writing professional\ud practices toward more complex storytelling.

Social science literature usually classifies lesbian and gay families among nontraditional, unconventional or alternative families. In the first part of the article the author draws attention to the inappropriate classification involved with such families. By using adjectives such as non-traditional, unconventional etc., we in fact emphasize the difference and deviation from normality that both automatically become the object of predomination. However, within such contexts "special" family forms become separated, inferior and unequal as proves the public discourse, which is infused with prejudice and the so-called concern of professional and laic public that discusses the consequences, children might endure growing up in such families. The author analyses the public institution's discourse concerning lesbian and gay families by critically observing the main arguments introduced by different experts that the politics uses in order to contradict the legalisation of same-sex parenthood. Further on, the author examines the family support the children, mothers and fathers are given in such families, especially from the point of view of the social work. The author concludes that much potential and tasks are to be performed by social work in the context of contemporary changes in family life, especially in relation to lesbian and gay families. Lezbične in gejevske družine družboslovna literatura običajno uvršča med t.i. netradicionalne, nekonvencionalne ali alternativne družine. Avtorica v prvem delu članka opozarja na neprimernost takega klasificiranja družin. Z uporabo pridevnikov, kot so netradicionalno, nekonvencionalno ipd. v resnici poudarjamo razliko, odmik od normalnega, ki tako samodejno postane predmet prevlade. Posebne oblike družin pa znotraj takih kontekstov postanejo nekaj ločenega, inferiornega in neenakopravnega. To se vidi tudi v javnem govoru o teh družinah, ki je prežet s predsodki in še zlasti s skrbjo strokovnih in laične javnosti, kakšne posledice bi utegnilo imeti življenje v njih na otroke. V članku avtorica analizira govor javnih institucij do lezbičnih in gejevskih družin ter kritično pretrese poglavitne argumente različnih strok, ki se jih v političnem govoru uporablja proti legalizaciji istospolnega starševstva. V nadaljevanju pogleda, kakšne družinske podpore so deležni otroci, matere in očetje iz takih družin pri nas, še zlasti iz zornega kota socialnega dela. Ugotavlja, da ima socialno delo v kontekstu sodobnih procesov sprememb v družinskem življenju, in posebej pri delu z gejevskimi in lezbičnimi družinami veliko potencialov in nalog.