Building Real Communities with LGBTQ+ Older Adults
Building Real Communities with LGBTQ+ Older Adults
Recorded on: 06/07/2022
Senior living communities need to reflect, address, and attract diverse population preferences. As many LGBTQ+ older adults have lived a lifetime of challenges and discrimination, which often persist as they enter the long-term care system, there are great opportunities for senior living leaders to consider unmet expectations from these individuals. Providers are increasingly tapping into these unmet demands by addressing barriers to promote equitable, person-centered resident engagement.
Learn how your community can create safe and inclusive environments for LGBTQ+ individuals that draw on their wisdom, allow them to participate in the community, and receive the support they need as they age to finally build true person-centered care.
Participants who join this webinar will be able to:
- Understand the key terms being used by LGBTQ+ older adults to better engage them as prospects and residents
- Recognize the historical and current context LGBTQ+ older adults navigate to help address the barriers preventing them from engaging fully as residents
- Discover practical resources to enhance engagement among LGBTQ+ older adult residents and to advocate as individuals for LGBTQ+ interventions
Rev. Beth Long-Higgins
VP of Engagement and Director
Ruth Frost Parker Center for Abundant Aging, United Church Homes
Rev. Beth Long-Higgins joined the United Church Homes Board of Directors in 2007 while serving as co-pastor of David’s United Church of Christ in Canal Winchester, Ohio. In 2013, she was called to serve on the staff at UCH and in 2017 was named as the founding executive director of the organization’s Ruth Frost Parker Center for Abundant Aging. A graduate of Heidelberg (College) University with degrees in psychology and music, Rev. Beth holds a Master of Divinity from the United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities. Beth has been an ordained minister in the UCC for over 30 years. She is a musician, a fiber artist and the mother of two adult children.
Robert Espinoza
Executive Vice President of Policy
PHI
Robert Espinoza, is the Executive Vice President of Policy at PHI, where he oversees its national advocacy, research, and public education division on the direct care workforce. In this role, he also contributes vision and leadership to PHI’s organizational strategy, marketing and business development, and commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. In 2020, he was selected for the first-ever CARE 100 list of the most innovative people working to re-imagine how we care in America today and as one of Next Avenue’s 2020 Influencers in Aging. In 2021, he testified before the U.S. House Committee on Education and Labor on the need to improve funding nationwide for workforce interventions in direct care.
Robert is a nationally recognized expert and frequent speaker on aging, long-term care, workforce, and equity issues. For more than 20 years, he has spearheaded high-profile advocacy campaigns and written landmark reports on aging and long-term care, LGBT rights, racial justice, and immigration, among other topics. He has appeared in multiple media outlets, including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, NPR, CNN, Forbes, and The Washington Post, and his writing has been published in The Huffington Post, The Hill, and POLITICO, among others.
