MHM Magazine

influencers in the townships of Mamelodi who had previously served as recruiters and peer educators for our HIV programmes in the same townships. • We implemented a comprehensive social media advertising campaign across all our platforms (including Instagram and Facebook), using ‘boosted ads’ to reach a wider audience. • Our recruiters also disseminated leaflets across the neighbourhoods advertising the programme to invite volunteers to participate. Despite engaging in a vigorous 8-month effort to encourage parents and guardians to participate in the family peer support groups, we only managed to recruit 3 parents, falling short of our target of 12 family peers. As a result, we decided to reconsider our approach. Upon analysing this failure, we devised a plan to create a comprehensive inventory of preexisting organisations that provide support to families and guardians of LGBT individuals. Through our research, we became aware of the existence of the organisation Parents, Families and Friends of South African Queers (PFFSAQ). We reached out and set-up meetings with them to get their insight on this problem we experienced. Two significant revelations from the meeting emerged. First, our attempts to engage parents through the channels we used were ineffective due to the enduring stigma in South Africa surrounding having an LGBT child. Second, we realised that we should focus on recruiting LGBT parents by actively participating in gatherings of LGBT community groups rather than relying on individual recruiters. THE TURNING POINT By heeding their advice, I decided to participate in an LGBT event focused on the yellow paper about migrant immigration. Attending this gathering provided me with the chance to network and connect with a transgender man who happens to manage an online support group for parents and guardians of LGBT individuals. What I found intriguing was thatthis support group wasa listening group. Individuals randomly shared their difficulties regarding a wide range of topics, including trying to better understand o their LGBT children, providing them with assistance, and defending them against hostility from their community and educational institutions. The members listened first and foremost and intervened only if, and when they had anything meaningful to help with. According to him, this was therapeutic for the members. Armed with this information, I arranged a meeting and got the support group on board through a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), to help with recruitment to offer Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) to family and guardians of LGBT youth. At this time, it was exactly 16 months into our 21-month programme! RESULTS Just three weeks after signing the MOU we conducted the first session of our 6-week CBT programme with the parents. We successfully recruited a total of 24 parents for the programme, a number that exceeded the aim we had given to our back-end donors by two. These sessions were not held in Pretoria, as we initially thought, but in Rosebank at the OUT offices. We provided transport stipends and lunch to all participants. Furthermore, as this group was primarily virtual, it marked the inaugural occasion for the majority of them to convene in person. I can happily confirm that 21 individuals out of the initial 24 participants in the family peer support group remained on board and actively participated in all the sessions for the entire duration of six weeks. The sessions had a unique focus on enhancing resilience, comprehending the accessible support systems for parents and guardians of LGBT young people, and motivating them to expand these networks within secure environments. An important discovery made during this programme was the enormous amount of information supplied by the family peers. For instance, Cecilia (pseudonym), unable to hold back her tears, expressed, "I should have safeguarded my daughter. She exhibited distinct qualities, but I desired her to conform to societal norms that we were taught. For years, I dismissed her until she experienced a physical assault due to her sexual orientation as a lesbian. That incident served as a pivotal moment of realisation for me... After that, I became her mother, her defender" Lerato (pseudonym), a single mother of a lesbian young person expressed the necessity for platforms that provide assistance to parents. She said, “none of us intentionally desire to harm or cause damage to our children. However, due to the lack of platforms like this one, which may provide us with education, we inadvertently end up doing so” OUR PERSONAL REFLECTION This paper concludes with a few personal reflections derived from the experiences of the Bazwa Mental Health Programme: • There is still much knowledge to be gained from emerging, somewhat unstructured grassroots LGBT groups. • While the South African LGBT movement has achieved significant success in major social initiatives such as marriage equality, hate crimes legislation, and improving access to HIV treatment and care, there are still areas where we need to address gaps and collaborate with emerging organisations to empower them to take the lead and excel. • The low attrition rate of our intervention can be attributed to the parents' need to establish a secure environment in which they can openly discuss the painful challenges they encounter as parents of LGBT individuals and seek support for their children. This is particularly significant considering that they previously only had access to a virtual platform. • There is considerable space for work in respect of LGBT parenting to be further developed and nurtured. References available on request. MHM | 2024 | Volume 11 | Issue 4 | Collaborative linkages with budding LGBT support groups in engaging parents of LGBT young people: a case study of the Bazwa Mental Health Programme MHM 26 | MENTAL HEALTH MATTERS | 2024 | Issue 4 H