RUDE creates short videos to talk sex and intimacy in later life
As an educator in social work and social care – Trish has found it important to embed strong values and commitment within professional education to encourage practitioners to listen to older people about their own sexuality. ‘RUDE Older People’ is an example of just one project which sought to develop digital teaching and learning materials devised by an intergenerational team of students, professionals and older.
Created for London Southbank University’s Social Work Department, RUDE is a series of short films supported by digital teaching and learning materials devised by an intergenerational team of students, professionals and older people created to confront common prejudice and oppression against older people in health and social care.
Greater acknowledgment therefore may provide a vehicle to broaden out discussion of ‘other’ relationships that older people might value and the support they might need to maintain these. It is really important for care professionals and providers of care service to have a good understanding and engagement with older people’s sexuality and sexual identities and how these might be recognised and valued.
It is important that these are the consequence of informed individual choice rather than being constrained by institutionalised care arrangements such as a lack of privacy, access to advice and information and unaddressed barriers as a result of health conditions.
Read more:
‘Bring back that loving feeling’
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Trish Hafford-Letchfield is Professor of Social Care at Middlesex University, London, UK. She is a qualified nurse, social worker and educator and her main interests are in promoting the quality of older people from marginalised communities: https://www.mdx.ac.uk/about-us/our-people/staff-directory/profile/hafford-letchfield-trish
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