Meet your LGBT+ advocates
Advocates for our LGBT+ staff network are sharing their stories with us here. We are launching the first of our advocate stories for IDAHOBIT Day – the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia (17 May 2023). Please read on to hear from Hen and Jo and watch this space for other first-person accounts from our LGBT+ network, representing the diversity of what makes us who we are:
Jo has worked for DCHS over a year and comes from Sheffield, she joined the LGBT+ network not long after joining the trust. Jo works for the Rapid Response Therapy Team as an Advanced Support Worker and is an Openly Gay Woman within her team and the trust. As the LGBT+ Staff Networks Gay Woman Advocate she would like to make others feel heard and welcome within DCHS. Whether they are openly gay, or struggling with their sexuality or sexual Identity. Jo wants to be a person that staff can trust, a listening ear, and someone who can be a voice to speak out against Homophobia, micro aggressions and prejudice that Gay people so often face, which can be a barrier to people coming out and being themselves in their place of work.
Jo wants to be approachable to all, and wishes everyone to be accepted for themselves within DCHS and the wider community that we work for. In the role for Gay women advocate, Jo wants to support anyone and hopes to make anyone who reaches out, feel listened to, welcome and able to be their true self.
Jo loves music, walking the dog, photography, and Yorkshire Tea!!
Henry has been involved in LGBT+ campaigning for several years and has been a part of DCHS since Jan 2020. Hen joined as a member of the LGBT+ Staff Network in 2021. Diversity and inclusion have been at the forefront of his work as both a School Nurse and Project Officers for the LGBT+ Staff Network. Advocating for the voices of both staff and children and young people.
As the LGBT+ Staff Networks Trans Advocate he wants to make others feel heard and make real and meaningful change within DCHS. Henry wants to be approachable to all and strives for inclusion to be integrated into all practice. In the Trans Advocate role Henry will support anyone on request and hope to make these people who reach out feel listened to, feel like they are speaking with someone who understands.
Outside of work Henry enjoys music and being outdoors.
Fern has always been an advocate for the LGBTQ+ community. Since starting working life and starting a family Fern has found the need to raise awareness more and more in day-to-day life, especially around different family make-ups.
Fern wants her role to open up the conversation so that people can ask questions for a better awareness of different identities in the LGBTQ+ community, being an expert by her experience regarding pansexuality.
Outside of work Fern enjoys hiking and spending time with her son and wife. You can normally find her in the peaks, trying to wear out her son or doing something silly for a quick giggle!
First-time motherhood in a same-sex marriage – a blog by Fern
Warren has worked for DCHS since 2020 but been in the NHS since 2004.
I am a Qualified District Nurse working within a community nursing team with Amber valley.
As the LGBT+ staff networks Gay male advocate, I want to make the voices of my peers heard and welcome within DCHS and the wider community.
The NHS has changed over the years to become more diverse and inclusive, but we still have a way to go. I feel that I can do my part to help by providing a listening ear and to advocate for patient and staff who do not have the confident to speak out for themselves.
Warren in his spare time can be found walking his cocker spaniel in the peak district or a weekend away in his campervan.