Uncovering barriers to service adoption for older, isolated, LGBT people.

The challenge

Stonewall Housing’s One Small Step Program enlists volunteers to help older (50+) LGBT people with small home tasks they may have difficulty with, at the same time redressing isolation in older LGBT communities. The program has many volunteers, however not enough people are requesting the service. We (a team of 4) were tasked with uncovering why.

Project story

At first, it was not obvious to us how to connect with isolated, older LGBT people. We researched LGBT and isolation in the UK and elsewhere, and looked for LGBT groups that mentioned older members who may be gatekeepers to more isolated members. Personal contacts proved fruitful; many people knew someone who was willing to talk to us.

Preparations: Before making contact with anyone we prepared ethics documentation, recruitment and information fliers, interview consent forms, and created a brand for our project. Interviews would require some sensitivity, so we asked LGBT friends for feedback on our approach. Our interview protocols went through several rounds of sanity checking before we spoke to anyone.

Talking to people: Eventually we talked to a wide range of LGBT people aged over 50 throughout the UK, some via Skype but others felt more secure meeting in person, which allowed observations and reading of non-verbal cues. Before and after chat helped make both parties more comfortable. Interviews were transcribed and summarized in hot reports.

Making sense of the data: We were privileged to hear some amazing personal histories. Analysis involved combing through hot reports and transcripts for common themes. We found many participants thought themselves too young and capable to receive One Small Step’s service, wishing to volunteer instead. However, most would like help with computers as these provide a vital means of connecting.

We found there was no one barrier to service adoption, but that each participant relayed a different mixture of common themes and barriers regarding their situation. We illustrated this by telling anonymous participant stories and graphically highlighting how the common themes and barriers occur within them.