Lancs LGBT

Each Mental Health Hour webinar has a different guest speaker who brings a specific focus to big topics in mental health.

So far, we have had professionals working in Psychotherapy, Mental Health, Sexual Health, Trans Health and Higher Education, as well as volunteers for regional and national LGBTQ+ charities. We are currently working on a second series.

The first series looks at the following topics:

• Identity, Shame and Self-Acceptance
• Mind, Body and Spirit: A Queer Muslim Perspective
• Accessing support for sex and relationship problems
• Queer Black Mental Health
• Trans Mental Health
• LGBTQ+ Identity and Disability
• Using Art as a means of exploring Trans Mental Health
• Queering Western Yoga Practices

#1: Identity, shame and self-acceptance

In this Mental Health Hour, guest speaker Bryan Dalgleish-Warburton discusses the negative impact of shame on LGBTQ+ mental health, and reflects on his work in psychotherapy to suggest a route toward self-acceptance

About the guest speaker: Bryan Dalgleish-Warburton is an accredited psychotherapist with BABCP, a registered member of BACP, and an accredited EMDR practitioner. Bryan is a Senior Lecturer at UCLAN where he teaches in the School of Community Health and Midwifery

#2 Mind, Body, Spirit: A Queer Muslim perspective

In this Mental Health Hour, guest speakers Osman and Deenah discuss the challenges of coming out and growing up as queer Muslims, and how they explore and celebrate their queerness through their cultural and religious identities

About the guest speakers: Osman is the outreach volunteer for Hidayah, a charity which provides support and welfare for LGBTQI+ Muslims and education around the queer Muslim community to counter discrimination, prejudice and injustice. Deenah is also a volunteer for Hidayah, and a proud Muslim lesbian. She is a fledgling journalist and believes strongly in empowering marginalised communities

#3 Accessing support for sex and relationship problems and gender issues

In this Mental Health Hour, guest speaker Matthew Pearce discusses the different types of support available to LGBTQ+ people in Lancashire who are experiencing sex and relationship problems as well as issues surrounding their gender

About the guest speaker: Matthew has been working for SHARE for the past 9 years. He is a Senior Psychosexual Psychotherapist and provides therapy in Accrington, Preston, and Burnley. Therapy is his primary role, but he is also a clinical supervisor. He sometimes supports psychosexual therapy students with their placements, and outside of SHARE he does some lecturing on the MSc Psychosexual Therapy course at the University of Central Lancashire

#4 Queer Black Mental Health

In this Mental Health Hour, guest speakers Tolu Ajayi and Cheryl Martin discuss a series of topics relating to Queer Black Mental Health, and reflect on their own experiences working in the charity sector and the creative industry

About the guest speakers: Tolu Ajayi is the Operational Lead at Rainbow Noir, community organiser, and performance artist. Rainbow Noir is a Manchester-based volunteer led community action group, which celebrates and platforms LGBTQIA+ people of colour. Cheryl Martin is the Co-Artistic Director of Black Gold Arts, writer, jazz singer and poet. Black Gold Arts is also a Manchester-based arts organisation working predominantly with working-class people of colour, the LGBTQ+ community and their allies. It aims to get often overlooked voices, stories and hidden histories seen and heard, through a range of artistic mediums

#5 Trans Mental Health

In this Mental Health Hour, guest speaker Jay McNeil discusses a series of topics relating to Trans Mental Health, and reflects on his lived experience navigating this as a trans man working as a clinical psychologist

About the guest speaker: Jay has spent over decade working for and within trans communities, co-founding TransBareAll in 2009, and then working with other organisations. In 2012 he led the Trans Mental Health study, the first and largest study of trans people’s mental health and well-being in the UK at the time. He has delivered training, spoken at conferences nationally and internationally, and produced media concerning trans people’s mental health and well-being

#6 LGBTQ+ and disability

In this Mental Health Hour, Daniele Lul discusses a series of topics relating to being a disabled LGBTQ+ person and his passion for improving visibility of LGBTQ+ people who are disabled

About the guest speaker: Daniele Lul is the Co-founder and Community Engagement Director of Parapride, a non-profit organisation that focuses on the intersection between disability and LGBTQ+ advocating for the visibility, education and awareness of this community

#7 Using Art as a means to explore Trans Mental Health

In this Mental Health Hour, Emma Preston discusses her personal journey as a trans woman, how she has navigated mental health, and how important her creative outputs are to her life

About the guest speaker: Emma Preston is a creative: an artist, author, public speaker and Television Production UCLAN student from Preston. In 2019 she published her book ‘Being Transgender: A personal journey of one life in two worlds’ and has recently finished her TV series ‘Bit Parts’

#8 Queering Western Yoga practices

In this Mental Health Hour, Tasmin Nicole discusses the value of yoga as a means of improving mental health, and her experience of trying to make yoga less gendered and more inclusive of LGBTQ+ people

About the guest speaker: Tamsin is a yoga instructor, who trained in Preston, and specialises in teaching yoga for marginalised bodies such as Queer and People of Colour (POC) communities. She also has a professional background in LGBTQ+ domestic abuse and mental health support work. They recently held a highly successful day retreat for POC in Manchester called ‘Soft Life’, the first of its kind in the region