A year on from launching our LGBTQ+ webchat service, what have we learned?
How we’ve evolved our offering to the LGBTQ+ community over the last 12 months and built a more inclusive service.
Launching in 2017 With You’s Webchat offers a free confidential space for people to talk about their alcohol and drug use with a qualified professional. In 2020 we had over 21,000 people access our online support.
We know that webchat is an easier channel for people who have never accessed help before to reach out. People who are struggling with their alcohol or drug use have a plethora of reasons they wouldn’t want to access help, stigma and shame being the things we hear a lot.
Alcohol and Drug use among LGBTQ+ groups is higher than among their heterosexual counterparts, irrespective of gender or the different age distribution in the populations. However, this is not reflected in the people accessing our in-person services. In one of our services only 4 people had identified as gay or bisexual since the beginning of the year out of 1490 registered. Evidence is limited as to why this is but it suggests there are specific barriers to accessing support.
There are limited available programs able to address culturally specific LGBTQ+ issues within services. In a 2018 survey for the LGBTQ+ equality charity Stonewall almost one in four patients (23 per cent) had witnessed negative remarks about LGBTQ+ people from healthcare staff while accessing services. When someone does access support there can be heteronormative side conversations that exclude LGBTQ+ people. The default questions if they are in a relationship, or who your next of kin forces the ‘am I safe to come out to this person’ thought process. Often they don’t see themselves reflected in the other people who access support. If there is a specialist service it can be quite a distance to individuals in rural areas.
As part of a wider ongoing project to improve our offering to the LGBTQ+ community, we looked at how webchat could be more inclusive. Webchat gives a confidential space where a person can disclose as much or as little as they want to a trained professional. The team offers service without borders or the barriers sometimes found in our commissioned support.
First of all we noticed a gap in our knowledge and recruited specialists in chems. Not only did this help to upskill the team but we tried offering specialist sessions for online one to ones with Ben, a frontline recovery worker and member of the community. This enabled people to access specialist support from wherever they were comfortable.
How the service has evolved over the last 12 months
We promoted the LGBTQ+ online sessions to let people know we were running specialist drop-ins with our resident expert. The uptake wasn’t what we hoped. We noticed that if we were advertising a drop in via social media, someone might not be served that advert until a different day of the week.
We then offered bookable appointments for the LGBTQ+ community on days when we felt we had the experience in the team to deliver valuable sessions. People would see the adverts on social media and could book a time and day suitable for them.
Along with this, we needed our website to reflect the people we wanted to see. Looking at the specific queries we were getting through webchat, our in-house content designer created two pieces pertinent to the community: Chemsex: how to stay safer and Chemsex: how to get back in control. We started to notice an increase in the number of chats relating to this topic, these were mostly coming through organic search.
We also changed the way we recorded data after someone spoke with webchat. Giving people the option to fill in demographic information after a conversation with one of our advisors gave us insight into who was using our service. About 12% of those who have a conversation with us will fill in our post-chat survey and from this we can see:
- 11% of those looking for support with alcohol identified as part of the LGBTQ+ community
- 16% of those looking for support with drugs identified as part of the LGBTQ+ community
- 30% of those looking for both alcohol and drugs support identified as part of the LGBTQ+ community
What’s next?
Having specialist bookable appointments is a good option, but it appeared that our online service had been reaching people in the community already. We know members of the LGBTQ+ community are found everywhere in society but specialist in-person services are not always available locally. By expanding the knowledge and supporting staff to have the skills to deliver the most appropriate intervention we are able to offer a place where LGBTQ+ people can thrive.
If you’re a member of the LGBTQ+ community and are struggling with alcohol and or drugs, we want to support you. You can book an online webchat session with one of our specialist advisors who are sensitive to the unique challenges your community faces.
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