beyondblue promises gay focus
By Zoe Carter
After almost a decade in operation, Australia’s national depression initiative beyondblue has taken its first major step towards addressing the alarmingly high levels of depression and anxiety in the GLBTI community.
Meeting in Melbourne last Thursday, more than 70 invited representatives from key service providers and stakeholders were in attendance for the GLBTI Mental Health Roundtable convened by the organisation.
At the meeting beyondblue gave a firm, though unqualified, commitment to collaborate with national GLBTI groups on ways to tackle GLBTI community depression.
Beyondblue CEO Leonie Young identified up to $2 million in funding that could potentially be earmarked for GLBTI relevant programs in the next 12-18 months.
“The community rely on us to be relevant and take action,” she told the meeting.
“Whether you’re from Melbourne or Mundijong, young, old, gay or lesbian, it’s about assessing risk factors and we’re delighted to be collaborating and doing so with so many people with shared interests.”
In his opening address beyondblue chair Jeff Kennett stressed the role the organisation has played in increasing awareness of depression, pointing to its high profile campaigns to “increase understanding to the point where we can talk about it openly and people can feel comfortable seeking help”.
The lack of comfort in seeking help was a key theme at the meeting, with roundtable participants identifying homo- and trans-phobia as dominant factors in comparatively high levels of depression and anxiety in the GLBTI community.
Kennett’s own record of widely reported homophobic comments was conspicuously not on the agenda and the former Victorian premier left shortly after his speech.
The unwillingness of beyondblue to engage with the GLBTI community on mental health in the face of substantial evidence-based research showing alarmingly high levels of depression and suicidal tendencies has garnered the organisation much criticism.
National LGBT Health Alliance executive director Gabi Rosenstreich welcomed the long overdue overtures made by beyondblue and the possibility of future contributions.
“The relationship between beyondblue and the LGBT community hasn’t always been easy so I commend [them] for taking the criticism on board and doing something concrete,” she said.
“We bring a lot of knowledge and expertise to the table, and until now we’ve lacked the resources to do what needs to be done.”
A second roundtable is scheduled to be held within a year.
John – Beyondblue is funded by our tax dollars and it seems us GLBT people are not getting any support in return. Recently Beyondblue sent a submission to the government on suicide prevention and in there submission they did not mention anything specifically realting to the high level of suicide in the GLBT community, they totally ignored us. Until a few months back you could visit the Beyondblue website and there was not one article on GLBT mental health issues. And to top it all off there CEO compares us to sex offenders and when we complain they defend themselves. Beyondblue is prejudiced towards us, face it.
John I am glad you have found Beyond Blue good for you, but they bring much suffering and stigma to people who happen to from our community. Not everyone will feel this, but a lot will. They have gone out of there way to be nasty to us likening us to child sex offenders.
I do, and will continue to support Beyond Blue. They do valuable work in bringing the issue of depression and mental health to men. I’m a man. Why must they provide specific programs to gay men? There is a huge group of men out there who are not part of any minority group and have no specialist health services to them that also deserve support and help. Anyone who grew up in regional Australia will know what I’m talking about. Let Beyondblue continue there good and valuable work. We don’t need to demand funding and attention.
Hi Vic, Can you provide links to that medical doctor? I would love to see his opinions in writing as it would really bring home to Beyond Blue how out of control their board and staff are.
More so, at least one of the head medicos still thinks g and l docs shouldn’t be able to practice.
Stop trying to make bucks out of us you lot of homophobes and leave the real work to the likes of Black Dog etc.
BeyondBlue has demonstrtated homophobic behaviour, including elisting homophobic speakers, since its inception. NOT convinced and won’t be supporting!
Fuck em.Too long too late and their literature is not that enlightening.I’ve been taking happy antidepressants /anti psychotics for 9 years.They have done more for me than the psychologists and their fact sheets.Will they employ glbt people to devise and run the info nights/staff the phones.
hmmmm…. Kennett left after his speech? Does he think giving a speech makes up for the other things he has said in the past about our community? It’ll take alot more than that for Beyondblue to redeem itself…..
I simply cannot support Beyond Blue as the Chair likens us to child sex offenders in employment.
I believe that although Beyond Blue has good intentions this is all about federal government funding. I suspect that now the Rudd government is in power they are worried about there government funding being reduced or declined due to there prejudiced attitudes towards the GLBT community, because when they were operating under Howard GLBT people did not seem to exist in regards to how the organisation provided support. Im not fooled.
Sounds like all “might get funding”, and this “might happen”. Having Kennett still in the Chair position is insulting. GLBTI people should also be very wary of being labelled with yet another mental illness, remember according to the same mental health crowd we were all mentally ill not that long ago.
I would think we would want to disassociate ourselves from this lot. PLEASED to see a FEMALE wrote this story!!!