The Life House Project: theatre-based explorations of home with LGBTQ+ Older Adults

Study Summary

This research project is all about enhancing the voices of older adults from LGBTQ+ communities in London, especially when it comes to their concerns about housing and care. We want to hear their stories and understand how they feel about these important aspects of their lives.

To do this, we are using a creative approach. We're organizing fun and engaging workshops where participants can express themselves through activities like theatre, script writing, and poetry. These will be followed up by optional interviews with the participants to learn more about their experience and what they gained from being part of the project. We want to know how this creative process helped them express their thoughts on housing and care.

Why are we doing this?

We know that LGBTQ+ older adults often have concerns about getting the right housing and care as they grow older. However, there isn't enough focus on helping them express these concerns and finding solutions that work for them.

Our project seeks to understand if this creative and fun way of sharing stories can be a big help. If it works well, we plan to do a bigger study and involve more LGBTQ+ older adults to make sure their needs are heard and acted upon by care and housing providers.

Why is this important? 

Because everyone deserves to have their stories heard, especially when it comes to important topics like where they live and how they receive care.

We've learned from past projects and conversations with older LGBTQ+ individuals that they want to be more involved in research like this. So, this study is designed to be something they can actively participate in.

Our goals are simple:

1. Let People Tell Their Stories: We want to see if our creative approach helps LGBTQ+ older adults share their stories and talk about their housing and care needs.
2. Develop Better Approaches: If our method works, we want to figure out how to use it on a larger scale. We aim to create ways for the needs expressed by LGBTQ+ older adults to be communicated and acted on by care and housing providers.
3. Share the Experience: We're also making a short video to show the impact of our project. This video will help us share what we've learned with others, like future participants, funders, and researchers.

How are we doing this? 

Our team, led by Dr. Georgia Bowers, Dr. Richard Green, and Professor Andrew King will work closely with a group of LGBTQ+ older adults. These individuals will attend workshops once a week for about seven weeks. In these workshops, they'll get to explore their thoughts and feelings on ageing, housing, and care through creative activities.

We'll document the whole process, create a short film, and finish by celebrating the participants and their work. This film will be a powerful tool to share what we've discovered, learn from the pilot study, and hopefully get more support for projects like these in the future.

In the end, it's about making sure the voices and stories of LGBTQ+ older adults are heard, understood, and lead to positive changes in how they experience housing and care as they age.

Get in touch

We would like to hear from you. If you are interested in using this approach in your own practice or have any questions or feedback about the film, we encourage you to contact the team by emailing Dr Georgia Bowers: g.bowers@gsa.surrey.ac.uk.