Social Inclusion, Exclusion & Resilience: A Social View of Health

 Engaging 'Hard to Reach' Communities

KEY MESSAGES:

• Building community and community resilience is important as it builds health in itself
• Art as a platform for health messages. Art in all its forms including new technology. Also opportunity to support our own emerging artists
• Importance of building partnerships both within community and outside to enhance this work

Friday 11:00-11:30 'TAKE CARE {OUT} THERE & OUT {BACK} THERE'; SINGING, WHIPPING AND LUBE WRESTLING TOWARDS IMPROVED QUEER SEXUAL HEALTH

Gabrielle Nolan, The {also} Foundation & Country Awareness Network

Contact: gabrielle@also.org.au; www.also.org.au

PRESENTER’S BIO:

Gabrielle is project co-ordinator of the {also} foundation sexual health initiative 'Take care {out} there', which is run in partnership with Country Awareness Network, the VAC, PLWHA Victoria, GLHV and DOH. 'Take Care' aims to develop a Victorian LGBTI sexual health promoting culture and network. The program has developed from a pilot, in which {also} engaged with queer sports groups during the 1st Asia Pacific Outgames and holding the first ever sexual health championships- 'The Drama Down Under Sexy Play Offs'. Previously Gabrielle has co-ordinated well-being projects in the multicultural community sector.

ABSTRACT:

A new program in Victoria, Take care {out} there metro and Take care {out back} there rural is becoming an example of best practice in community engagement around sexual health. The program is aimed at developing a state-wide LGBT health promoting culture and network.  The presentation will firstly explain the conceptual framework of the Take care program. Through engaging with new and emerging social sites within LGBT community the program model has been designed to enhance community connectedness, and as an innovative approach to sexual health promotion.  It will give a snapshot of how the program is being rolled out, utilising visual aids to give the audience a clear idea of the events and collateral involved.  The types of activities used have ranged from cabaret, fetish workshops, queer sex education sessions, drag, trivia, competitions around sexual health information and a lube-wrestling contest. Another core component has been development or provision of targeted sexual health resources for each group.  The presentation will run through the processes that have been involved in developing these activities and the learnings of the program so far. It will especially look at opportunities that have come out of criticisms and how that has lead to the enhancement of program processes. There'll be discussion about how diversification of queer cultural identity can be embraced for better health outcomes through strengthening community events and networks.  Three questions are put forward for audience discussion:  How do we know that increasing community connectedness and availability of appropriate information will improve sexual health outcomes?  How could we use these community development approaches in other areas of queer health?  Is the idea of applying social view of health in order to achieve improvements of health outcomes from enhanced community connectedness, useful in a broader sense than for improving health?

Friday 11:30-12:00 FACEBOOK-FRIENDLY DRUG EDUCATION: TARGETING HEALTH MESSAGES FOR YOUNG LGBT PEOPLE

Tarnia Thompson, ACON

Contact: tthompson@acon.org.au; www.acon.org.au; www.partysafely.org.au

PRESENTER’S BIO:

Tarnia Thompson has recently entered the drug and alcohol sector and is currently working on range of projects within ACON's Alcohol and Other Drugs Program.  She has skills in community development, including engaging GLBT communities to address acute drug and alcohol harms in event settings through the Rover Project.  Tarnia also works in resource development. She has created a number of targeted drug and alcohol resources for ACON, in consultation with affected communities.

ABSTRACT:

ACON is Australia's largest community-based GLBT health and HIV/AIDS organisation.  ACON has been working with its communities around drug and alcohol issues since the early 1990s.  Health promoters are increasingly urged to explore new ways to target health messages more effectively to young people.  Engagement with digital technologies presents an opportunity to create change in the health behaviours of young people who do not access traditional print media health resources.  For its newest youth-focused alcohol and other drugs resource for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people ACON used an interactive web-based animated game with iPhone and Facebook elements to maximise the relevance and reach of its health promotion and harm reduction messages. Consultations with young people indicated they prefer to get health information in online formats, and from their friends, which accords with recent research on how best to engage youth in health promotion.  In response, ACON developed a web-based choose your own adventure style game, with associated Facebook and iPhone applications to convey health information and to promote the web resource via the target population's social networks.  The resource is based upon online game playing, social networking and music browsing, with all drug and alcohol information and harm reduction strategies being presented in response to the individual choices that young people can make throughout the game.  We will familiarise conference attendees with the ACON's Party Safely with the Big Heads game and some of the key health promotion messages that have been incorporated into the game, as well as providing an understanding of the relevance of online media in youth-specific health education. A summary of the strengths and challenges associated with using online media in youth-focused health promotion will also be provided.

Friday 12:00-12:30 DINNER PARTIES AND CABARETS: ENGAGING CREATIVLEY WITH LGBT COMMUNITIES IN QUEENSLAND

Shane Garvey, Queensland Association for Healthy Communities

Contact: sgarvey@qahc.org.au

PRESENTER’S BIO:

Over the past 20 years, Shane Garvey has been actively involved in the Brisbane Queer and Alternative scene organising queer art exhibitions, cabarets, performances and dance parties. Shane is also a DJ and a guitarist in the queer punk band, Anal Traffic.  Shane has worked as the Peer Support & Community Development Officer for QLD Positive People, Queer Campaign Support Officer for the QUT Student Guild, supervised the Brisbane NSP at Qld Injectors Health Network, and is currently the Alcohol, Tobacco and other Drugs Co-coordinator for Queensland Association for Healthy Communities.

ABSTRACT:

Queensland Association for Healthy Communities (QAHC) undertook a one year project to explore Mental Health and Alcohol, Tobacco and other Drugs needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender LGBT) Queenslanders. With sexual orientation and alternative gender identities absent from the national data set of mental health and AOD clinical assessment, creative processes were needed to engage and collect data from this diverse and often hidden community. The expanding sub-cultures and 'tribes' in LGBT communities have become more & more complex and difficult for organisations to relate to as a single community. The following seminar will argue more creative & real life ways of engagement are therefore required. The presentation will describe Q-Arts - a program of alternative events and artistic strategies that were used to engage LGBT Queensland communities and discuss ways in which health organisations can use the arts as a communication medium for discussing and raising awareness of research themes, along with promoting health & well being in communities and creating social inclusion for people experiencing marginalised areas of health.