Public Speaking

Today I gave another presentation to a group of students at Columbia University, this time within their Nursing Department. My presentation is called "LGBT 101" and when I first created it, it was a Powerpoint with slides and was pretty basic. As I have continued to give this talk though, I'm becoming increasingly thrilled with the level at which students have been open to talking and making it more of a conversation and discussion than a lecture. Much of this is due to the media and the political campaigns happening, no question, but it's bringing up some great points and counterpoints. The presentation was initially scheduled for 45 minutes and grew into almost 3 hours of story sharing, example discussions, and I really feel we all left the room a bit more enlightened than we'd entered.

I really hope to continue to be asked by companies, organizations, and schools to present on this topic, I truly enjoy spreading current and topical information to those whose ignorance is easy to correct when their minds are open to learning!

Politics, Education, and You

I just read these articles

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/23/nyregion/23gender.html?_r=1&ref=transsexuals

http://www.advocate.com/News/Daily_News/2011/03/24/Westboro_Threatens_Picket_of_Taylor_Funeral/

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-03-apple-gay-app-itunes.html

and it got me to thinking...

How many of our social work school programs teach up-to-date information on the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) population? How many of us take it upon ourselves to regularly update our education on the issues that are specific to this group?

It's estimated that 1/10 of the population falls into this category, so the odds are pretty tiny that a social worker could practice for 30+ years and never encounter an LGBT client or a client dealing with stress related to an LGBT family member or friend.

One of my favorite things to do is to provide trainings on LGBT issues, to help educate social workers and anyone who wants to learn to become more familiar with everything from the politics to the correct terminology. On socialworkchat.org, we sometimes discuss these issues as well and we know that NASW believes in treating all clients with an equal level of respect.

So I ask you, Reader, how much do you know? How prepared would you feel if a new client rapped on your office door and wanted to talk about these issues? More importantly, what are you doing to become better educated on a regular basis?

(I'm happy to help anyone with questions and will let you all know when our next socialworkchat.org chat topic will be focused on this population, so please ask your questions and contribute to the discussion by commenting below!)