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The Lesbian and Gay Foundation does loads of stuff for lesbian and bisexual women.
This video is about the services we have on offer.
(Phone rings) 'Good evening, the Lesbian and Gay Foundation. How can I help?'
LGF provide mental health and wellbeing services to support people from all walks of life.
Services include face-to-face counselling, pop-in advice sessions, a telephone helpline
and email advice service.
We know that lesbian and bisexual women are likely to have poorer mental health than their
heterosexual peers. Our aim is to give women the tools to be able to take good care of
their mental health and build resilience.
My name's Lucy. I'm the wellbeing manager at the Lesbian and Gay Foundation.
In a typical week, my job would involve: meeting clients; I do some counselling; I take helpline calls.
It's really important that we have sevices which are specifically for lesbian, gay and bisexual people
because there are some issues that lesbian, gay and bisexual people experience;
for example, coming out.
There's also a lot of issues around homophobia that people experience, and often that leaves people feeling really vulnerable.
It's really important that people have a specialist service
where they feel safe to be able to come and be open and be honest,
and receive the support that they need to keep them on their feet.
'How have things been since last week?'
'I'm a little bit worried, really, for the week coming up because, obviously,
I'm moving out of the house that we shared'
'It sounds like, maybe, where you are at the moment is trying to accept what's happened,
and I understand that's really difficult.'
Upstairs, we've got our wellbeing suite and that's got a dedicated waiting room for people
that are waiting to access various different mental health and wellbeing services.
It is discreet, it feels a little bit more comfortable when people are coming in.
'I think the most important thing to remember is you just have to take things at your own pace.
We have a counselling service, but we also run a series of support groups that you
might be interested in accessing.'
We have, at the Carousel women's group, which is for bisexual and lesbian women,
an open group for people to come for different reasons.
We have another women's group called Stepping Stones, which is for people who are
coming out or who feel isolated. So this is just a safe space for people to come and have
a bit of a chat and make new friendships.
'When I started coming, and a few of us started coming at the same time. You get to meet people
in similar situations as yourself.'
'I came out, probably, only about eight months ago. And I came from a very isolated situation
so coming here has really, really helped me. It, kind of, suddenly feels like coming home.
One of the most rewarding things about the job I do here is just realising you can do
something quite small, something that seems quite small, it may be just talking to someone
on the phone for ten minutes. It can just make them feel listened to, and make them
feel that somebody's listened and understood, and accepted them.
It makes my job feel really worthwhile.
For more information about the Lesbian and Gay Foundation, call us on 0845 3 30 30 30,
or visit our website: www.lgf.org.uk/women