New gay family support
New or expecting same-sex parents often have to shop around for sensitive healthcare and counselling services but new guidelines will help service providers understand same-sex families.
The ‘Working with Same-Sex Parented Families’ guidelines outline how discrimination can happen inadvertently for same-sex parents and shows how service providers can be more responsive to those who use reproductive technology, such as IVF or surrogacy, and co-parenting arrangements.
Victorian Labor welcomed the new guidelines from La Trobe University’s Bouverie Centre at the Victorian Family Institute’s Brunswick launch last month.
Health promotion shadow minister Danielle Green said the launch of the guidelines were the first step in highlighting the inequality in service provision for parents.
She said the guidelines aimed to encourage more families to benefit from these services when starting a family.
“As the mother of two sons, one straight and one gay, I look forward to future guidelines on grandparenting for GLBTI families,” Green said.
