Groundbreaking information for caregivers—and those receiving care

It is more common now than ever before for partners, family members, and friends to provide informal care, yet caregiving in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) communities has received little attention. Caregiving with Pride is the pioneering examination of caregiving experiences in the LGBT population. This important text also provides a frank discussion of the issues involved in needing and receiving care as well. Comprehensive and up-to-date, this both a timely account of an important field and practical information for implementing change.

Unique in its focus and scope, Caregiving with Pride offers readers original research and new summaries and analyses of existing literature. With a wide-ranging approach that is both readable and enlightening, this essential collection recognizes the changing nature of families as central to the issues of caregiving and LGBT communities. It features articles that insist on and illustrate the importance of taking both identity issues and socio-cultural policy contexts of caregiving into account. While maintaining a multifaceted biopsychosocial perspective that is critical to understanding the varied aspects of this topic, contributors discuss:

• the prevalence of caregiving with LGBT communities
• health issues and the needs of those requiring care
• the unique risk and protective factors impacting HIV/AIDS caregivers
• the psychological effects - positive and negative - of caregiving
• family and personal - “chosen family” - relationships
• interactions with formal systems of health and long-term care
• effects of history and social stigma on those needing and giving care
• how current social policies impede LGBT people in their access to care
• the ways established medical guidelines hinder LGBT caregivers in their efforts to help
• existing interventions and opportunities to better sever these communities
• and much more!

While Caregiving with Pride provides a detailed perspective of the current state of this often overlooked field, it also looks ahead and outlines a practical, useable blueprint for future research, services, and policies in marginalized communities.

As an informative stand-alone resource, Caregiving with Pride is essential for gerontologists, sociologists, historians, social workers, psychologists, educators, researchers, and policy makers. In addition, this collection is ideal as a supplementary text for students of aging, women studies, GLBT studies, sociology, and health studies as well as the larger GLBT community.