As part of the project “Common Point - Innovative approaches to training mental health service providers for the quality support of LGBTQI people”, LORI has held a public event Advancing Psychosocial Support for LGBTIQ+ Persons on July 14th 2022 in RiHub in Rijeka.

Through lectures, presentations and discussions, more than 25 mental health professionals (school counsellors, crisis hotline operators, employee assistance programs counsellors, social workers, clinical psychologists) have had the chance to learn about LORI Psychosocial programme, Counselling LGBTIQ+ persons, Specific aspects of working with trans persons and Project Common Point results. The speakers were LORI experts, but also professionals with many years of experience in the topic, dr. sc. Jasminka Juretić (University Counseling Center Rijeka) and mr. spec. Iva Žegura, prof. (University Psychiatric Hospital Vrapče, Zagreb). The audience has shared great interest in learning from them, asking more and more on practical issues, how to proceed in a certain situation, what can one do within an institution etc.

As part of the project “Common Point - Innovative approaches to training mental health service providers for the quality support of LGBTQI people”, organisations Hatter Tarsasag, Prague Pride, Single Step Foundation and Lesbian Organisation Rijeka-LORI have issued the Handbook for trainers of the same name. The aim is to develop an innovative and easily accessible material to train mental health professionals, in order to promote the design of personalised support programs for LGBTIQ+ people in their empowerment processes.

Within the same project LORI has held successfully the 5-days training course on LGBTIQ+ topics for mental health service providers and recently we have presented the series of educational videos on various LGBTIQ+ topics. 

As part of the Erasmus+ project “CommonPoint - Innovative approaches to training mental health service providers for the quality support of LGBTQI people”, Lesbian Organisation Rijeka – LORI held a training course on LGBTIQ+ topics for mental health service providers from  April 21^st until April 25^th 2021 via the Zoom platform.

By exchanging knowledge, experiences and practices, 15 attendees (clinical psychologists, school counsellors, social workers and crisis hotline operators from Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Croatia) had their capacities strengthened which increased the quality of mental health services for LGBTIQ+ persons.

As part of the Erasmus+ project “Common Point - Innovative approaches to training mental health service providers for the quality support of LGBTQI people”, organisations from four European countries (Hatter Tarsasag from Hungary, Prague Pride from Czech Republic, Single Step Foundation from Bulgaria and Lesbian Organisation Rijeka-LORI from Croatia) together work on developing an innovative and easily accessible material to train professionals in the field of mental health, in order to promote the design of personalised support programs for LGBTIQ+ people in their empowerment processes.

Hence, last year within this project LORI has held successfully the 5-days training course on LGBTIQ+ topics for mental health service providers. Now, we are excited to present series of educational videos on various LGBTIQ+ topics. Through six short videos (10-24 minutes long), our intention is to increase the knowledge and cultural competences of mental health professionals (school counsellors, crisis hotline operators, employee assistance programs counsellors, social workers, clinical psychologists) on LGBTIQ+ topics. Videos are in English and subtitles are available in Croatian, Czech, Hungarian, Bulgarian and English, and they cover various topics such as: LGBTIQ terminology and basic concepts, coming out, specific aspects of working with LGBTIQ+ persons for mental health professionals, challenges of being transgender or gender diverse person, homophobia/biphobia/transphobia/interphobia, LGBTI human rights, violence and discrimination etc.