‘It feels meaningful’: How informal mental health caregivers in an LGBTQ community interpret their work and their role

Abstract

Many members of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and gender diverse, and queer (LGBTQ) communities provide informal mental health support to peers. This type of support is valuable for people who receive it–even helping to prevent suicide. It is also meaningful to those who provide it. In this article, we focus on how LGBTQ people derive meaning from their experiences of supporting peers. In-depth interviews with 25 LGBTQ people in Melbourne, Australia, indicate that those providing informal mental health support to fellow community members recognise their roles as meaningful in three main ways: in terms of self, relationships and communities. Recognising the meanings that LGBTQ caregivers derive from helping fellow community members provides useful information service providers and policymakers seeking to better address mental distress in LGBTQ communities and support caregivers. It is useful to understand this meaningful work in an LGBTQ context as caregiving that challenges gendered and heteronormative assumptions about what care is, and who provides it.