Mr Ben Crough1
1Australian Unity and the Community and Employee Wellbeing Practice Lead
The purpose of this talk is to highlight the services and opportunities that LGBTQI people and allies have whilst living and working remotely. From my own experience coming out in a remote town can be hard. Harder when you are a key health professional in the town. Whether you are out, still in the closet( closest to a degree) or are an ally my talk will build on rescources, training, opportunities, events and social media that people living remote might not be aware of.
Talking about my experience with StartOut, The Broken Heel Festival, Regional town Mardi Grass, Social Media, Online Training, Membership to professional bodies to support you D&I and opportunities to mentor my 15 talk will be quick wrap up of all the things people and organisations can do to support there LGBTQI staff and patients.
Following up with links to resources, ideas for there own events, key statistics and personal stories I aim to provide a wealth of knowledge to those in the room.
The issue I will address is that just becasuse you are remote doesn’t mean you are along an the information that you might require or that you have to share is valued somewhere.
To measure whether my talk has succeeded will be for people to take ideas and ask me questions so they can do further research and support there LGBTQI inclusion work when they go back remote.
Biography:
I have worked as a pharmacist for 3 years and in that time was awarded the Novice CRANAplus Conference Award for my work in remote health. During this time I came out and moved to Melbourne where I worked as a Pharmacisty consultant for a drug company patient support program for people living with diabetes. I also supported some other medical conditions like Osteoporosis. During this time I also started the Australian Unity Pride Network and have worked over the last 2 years building workplace inclusion to the corporate world. Not forgetting my rural background I strive to build D&I