About us

We have a helpful team of peer support workers at the Gender Identity Clinic. Their names are Helen (She/Her), Sam (They/Them) and Luc (They/Them)

They can offer you person-centred, emotional support whilst you prepare for your first appointment at the clinic.

An introduction to our peer support workers

Tap the expandable boxes below to find out a little more about the peer support workers at the Gender Identity Clinic.

Helen (She/Her)

  • I am a trans woman – I transitioned through the clinic between 2007 and 2010 after a four year wait
  • I completed my transition in 2010 when the clinic helped me to have lower surgery
  • My background is in engineering; it was this job that helped me to find the creative side within myself. Since working at the NHS, it has broadened my creativity and given me a glimpse into creating my own art in relation to my lived experience of being a trans woman
Helen standing in front of a Trans flag

 

Sam (They/Them) 

  • I am a trans non-binary person who was assigned female at birth – I was a service user in the clinic from 2013 to 2020
  • In that time, I underwent 18 months of psychotherapy, two surgical procedures and an 18 month period of treatment on hormone blockers
  • I am neurodivergent and my favourite colour is black

 

Sam standing in front of the non-binary flag

 

Luc (They/Them

  • I am a transmasculine non-binary person – I started my transition in 2017 at a Gender Identity Clinic in the south
  • My journey has included gender counselling, speech and language therapy and gamete storage. After these, I started Testosterone HRT, had top surgery, and am now waiting for lower surgery
  • I am mixed-race (half-Malagasy, half-white British) and love to spend my spare time reading, playing video games and caring for my three rescue guinea pigs!
     

How does peer support work?

Peer support at the Gender Identity Clinic currently works in one of three ways:

  • Face-to-face video calls: These are remote calls via 'Attend Anywhere' software used by the NHS (Attend Anywhere is a conference call software that helps keep conversations confidential)
  • Voice calls: A confidential phone call between a service user and peer support worker
  • E-peer-pal: A digital email exchange with an agreed response time. 

Follow this link for the E-peer-pal guidelines and rules leaflet.

A flow chart infographic depicting how to access support worker care

 

How to access peer support

To access our peer support service, you will need to submit a peer support engagement questionnaire.

Download the peer support engagement questionnaire as an editable word document here.

Please be aware:

If you choose to call the clinic, your call will be answered by a member of our admin team who will confirm your contact details and pass on your message to the peer support team. The peer support team will then respond in due course.

Future developments

What would you like to know?

We have been thinking of ways to regularly engage with our service users and decided to develop a newsletter for the service.

To get an idea of what you would like in a newsletter we would appreciate if you could take a few minutes to complete our peer support worker newsletter ideas survey here.

Based on responses, we will aim to design a newsletter that is engaging and relevant for our service users.

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