Jacqui Jobson (CF 2017) from Newcastle is a freelance equality consultant. In December 2020, Jacqui received a Covid-19 Action Fund grant to develop culturally competent good-practice guidance for healthcare professionals and mental health services on how to support LGBTQ+ communities during the pandemic.

She is receiving a second Action Fund grant to build on this work and develop a quality standard for LGBTQ+ inclusion and cultural competency in the care and charity sectors. There currently is no such quality standard within these sectors in the UK. Provisionally called The Rainbow Care Award, the new standard will support organisations to improve their practices and services and demonstrate that they have done this through a robust assessment process. Over the first six months, Jacqui will use her funding to create the award, through undertaking market research, creating training materials, developing an assessment process and designing a logo. She will then spend the next six months marketing the award to organisations, training 15 organisations in cultural competency and delivering advice on improvements following assessment, before giving the awards. Finally she will evaluate the project in order to aim of scale its reach and impact.

Jacqui’s Fellowship to Australia and Canada in 2017 explored advocacy approaches to mental health inequalities amongst the LGBTQ+ community. It was supported by the Mental Health Foundation.