Southwark has a long history of activism and several high profile activists have at one time lived and worked in this borough. This activism has lead Southwark down a path of a 'hands on' partnership approach of work, with the LGBT community and service providers working together to improve the lives of the local LGBT community.

Southwark Council held a public meeting in May 1995 and one of the outcomes of this event was the formation of the Southwark Anti Homophobic Forum (as from 2008 the Southwark LGBT Forum) and is now the longest running Forums of its kind in the country, and is now seen, by other London boroughs and LGB(T) organisations, as a place of good practise where organisations and the local LGBT community come together to exchange thoughts and views on a variety of issues and topics.

Since 1995 the Forum has continued to be a space where the community can interact with service providers and organisations to enable them to improve their service provision by consulting with and listening to the community.

In 2002 there was a needs survey of the local LGBT community and one of the outcomes was for forming of the Southwark LGBT Network, the Network's principle aim is to build a vibrant and diverse community through events.

From this, the position of LGBT Community Development Worker was developed (based within Southwark Council) alongside the LGBT domestic violence and hate crime case worker (Bede House) and the full time LGBT Police liaison officer.

It is now widely understood that historically the LGBT community has had a turbulent past within contexts of being legal and/ or how this community can be regarded by other small factions within other communities. This has lead to a community of individuals that can be disempowered, have low self esteem, is isolated, has mental health issues, experiences hate crimes and violence.

People who have low self esteem because they have been told all their lives that they are no good will not easily access support services when they need to as they will generally feel that what ever they are experiencing is 'their fault' and that 'they deserve this'. These feelings are often compounded when someone does access support services and then is told by someone in authority that the problem does in fact start with them and that 'being gay is a mental health issue'.

Therefore, to counterbalance this, people have to feel important, valued, empowered and know that it is not being LGBT that is the problem but ignorance, homophobia and intolerance that is.

The role of the LGBT Community Development Worker is to at least attempt to address that balance by giving people a chance to meet an out person who can positively support their ideas and aspirations and begin to develop a sense of community.

From 2004 the LGBT Community Development Worker has been based in the local authority as this has been a good place to start to continue the dialogues started by the Forum and the Network while being placed right at the centre of a range of services that local people will access on a day to day basis.

Over the last four years there has been an immense surge forward with rights and legislation that now makes LGBT people equal in more ways that could have been imagined even ten years ago. One of the most interesting points is the Good and Service legislation which now means that no one can be refused a service just because they happen to be lesbian, gay or bisexual.

With the recent legislations and laws of protection comes a period of adjustment for the LGBT community and it may take some time for people to really understand what equality means for them as individuals and more widely as a community.

Southwark's scene

As Southwark's 'scene' has remained relatively small, unlike Lambeth and Westminster, and this 'scene' has had a past of hosting men only 'sex related' premises, this has given Southwark a slight edge and places this 'scene' in a challenging position with the Police and more recently the local authority.

The work of the LGBT Community Development Worker is principally set up to increase the numbers of people taking part in events and meetings and also to begin to create a series of events where the community can interact with each other to share, learn form each other, share and celebrate a LGBT history and have fun together.

With the LGBT Community Development Worker position Southwark can continue to build upon past work, it is my personal hope that alongside the existing work that more LGBT business's are seeing Southwark as a place to be based as to make Southwark a more LGBT friendly borough there has to be open, vibrant and diverse business's as being from the LGBT community needs to be seen to be a normality within Southwark which will have the knock on effect of other communities seeing LGBT as normal and not something that 'happens elsewhere'.