Program Reaches Out to ‘Invisible’ Gay and Lesbian Seniors

The Montrose Counseling Center has recently introduced Seniors Preparing for Rainbow Years, a program that sets out to change the way that GLBT seniors live. 

Eight outreach workers — four from MCC and four from Legacy Community Health Services — were extensively trained in January in everything from needs assessment and peer support to counseling and case management. Currently, the counseling services are available and within a couple of weeks a peer support service will be introduced.

"What we’re doing in Houston is important because it’s an opportunity to build a model for organizations all over the country," said Legacy Community Health Services’ SPRY outreach worker, Kanti Campagna.

Seniors in the general U.S. population easily slip through the cracks, but adding GLBT to the equation can be even more detrimental. GLBT elders are a segment of society that has been conspicuously absent from any in-depth research on the mental effects of aging. One of the latest studies on the subject, "Older Americans 2004: Key Indicators of Well-Being" does not mention the word "gay" in the entire document. They are called the "invisible community" and include members of GLBT society age 60 and over who may be experiencing depression, anxiety or other mood disorders and, for various reasons, end up suffering in silence. 

SPRY has already conducted intensive needs assessment interviews with about fifty seniors and is targeted to reach 75 in three years.

MCC was awarded the grant for SPRY from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration in November 2005. Out of 165 organizations that originally applied, eleven were granted money and MCC is the only group catering to the gay community out of those eleven.

Chris Kerr, program coordinator at MCC, said the biggest obstacle is conveying that the services are confidential. 

"One of our elder members on our consumer advisory committee said, ‘We’ve got this "adaptive camouflage" that is very instinctive and very powerful and it’s hard to just let it go,’" he said.

SPRY is designed to counter that concern by its unique approach to locating and assisting those in need. The outreach worker training is based on the Indigenous Leader Outreach Model. Researchers at University of Illinois-Chicago who were working with HIV positive intravenous drug users developed the model. 

"They found that if they hired peers from that community, trained them and then sent them back," Kerr said. "It was a highly effective way of establishing trust and making connections. Our proposal was to adapt that model to this mental health problem with elders in the GLBT population." 

One caveat to the grant for SPRY is, if someone has insurance, the provider will be billed for services, but anything that insurance will not cover, the grant will. 

Campagna added that people are grateful for being "found."

"One person called the outreach worker that had been working with him and expressed his gratitude telling him, ‘You were in my prayers last night’. 

"I think that’s the beauty of this program," she said.

"It’s just one on one, person to person."

MCC urges anyone interested in finding out more about SPRY to contact them to set up an appointment.