LGBTQIA+ Foundations: A Guide for Counsellors & Helping Professionals

A clear, practical starting point for anyone working with LGBTQIA+ clients; whether you're a counsellor, therapist, or helping professional wanting to build an affirming practice.

The guide is written to help you actually show up better for the people in front of you: understanding language, avoiding common assumptions, and knowing what to do when you get something wrong (because everyone does, and how you recover matters more than never slipping up).

What's inside:

• A clear breakdown of the LGBTQIA+ acronym
• Understanding gender identity and sexual orientation
• Pronouns - why they matter and how to use them well
• Is "cis" a slur? (and other questions people are often afraid to ask)
• A practice section: what this looks like with real clients
• Curated further reading and resources

Written by Rach Gaskell (she/they), LGBTQIA+ counsellor and trainer at Queer Minds, drawing on years of frontline experience in mental health and social prescribing.

This guide covers the fundamentals. If you want to go deeper, it's the first step toward the full training programme for counsellors and helping professionals.