Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Men in Transition to Parenthood: a strength-based approach for mental health and well-being

Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer (GBTQ) men experience low rates of mental health and wellbeing in pursuing parenthood. Nevertheless, the mental health and wellbeing of GBTQ men in pursuing parenthood is significantly understudied. Indeed, the wellbeing of GBTQ men sits at the periphery of family studies and the reproductive health field where current research in the UK prioritises the psychological health and wellbeing of heterosexual and lesbian mothers. Established research on LGBT-parent families is also mostly oriented towards measuring and assessing family functioning and the impact on children's wellbeing and development. This study intends to make a unique contribution to theory and practice by shifting away from this traditional research focus with LGBT+ communities towards a more holistic orientation to include the under-represented voices of GBTQ men. The proposed research will explore the mental health and wellbeing of GBTQ men in pursuing parenthood. I will employ a strength-based approach to understand what resources GBTQ men rely on in pursuing parenthood and how these can be integrated into the services they access.
To understand the experiences of GBTQ men through a strength-based lens, I will focus on the following research questions:
1. What are the experiences of GBTQ men in pursuing parenthood?
2. What are GBTQ men's health and social care needs in pursuing parenthood?
3. What resources do GBTQ men rely on in pursuing parenthood?
4. How can these resources be integrated into services to support GBTQ men in pursuing parenthood?
Adopting a Strengths-Based approach can help to design interventions, programs and policies that can foster empowerment and self-efficacy in GBTQ men in transition to parenthood. Indeed, strengths-based interventions promote a set of values and practices that can foreground GBTQ men's self-determination and celebrate and attend to their resources and capacities, seeking to support and build on these resources to manage the impact of mental health and wellbeing issues (Baron and Stanley, 2019).
Participants will be recruited via networks established during the programme of studies with LGBTQ+ organisations at a national level. The research will aim to recruit a diverse sample considering race, ethnicity and age to reflect the diversity of GBTQ-parent families. The research will employ a qualitative multimethod in two phases. Public involvement will be sought in the design of the methods with input from community groups and GBTQ-parent families. The expertise by experience offered by members of the public will improve the quality and the relevance of the research while increasing its potential to achieve change.
Audio diaries are a qualitative longitudinal method and an evolved form of the written diary method that could support this research project. The unobtrusive nature of this method could be most suited to explore the daily and complex experiences of GBTQ men pursuing parenthood, whilst still allowing for the collection of rich and time-situated data. The diaries would detail any significant happenings in pursuing parenthood, including what happened, what went well and why, and how participants dealt with it through a consideration of their strengths and deficits (Q1). Semi-structured interviews could supplement the data collected from the audio diaries. Interviews could allow a more holistic investigation of issues and more thorough reflections on the significance and implications of events correlated to pursuing parenthood rather than describing events as they unfold. These are therefore suited to address Q2, Q3 and Q4.
Data could be thematically analysed. Data will be used to co-produce a toolkit with GBTQ-parent communities which will suggest the implementation of different strength-based interventions for health and social care professionals, local authorities and third sector organisations to improve their practice when dealing with GBTQ-parents.