Goldsmiths Uni seals Crete deal to boost LGBTQIA+ care

April 10, 2026

South London News Smart London Desk Edited By Jimmy Nsubuga

A new partnership between Goldsmiths, University of London and a Greek university is set to revolutionise how LGBTQIA+ people in Crete experience vital health and social care services. This landmark deal aims to tackle discrimination head-on.

Tackling discrimination in care

The agreement with Hellenic Mediterranean University in Crete builds on the groundbreaking research of Dr Panagiotis Pentaris from Goldsmiths’ School of Mind, Body and Society. His work has already influenced Greek legislation recognising LGBTQ+ families.

Under the new deal, Dr Pentaris will lead a programme of LGBTQ+ affirmative training for social workers and local authority officials in Crete. This is crucial for professionals involved in adoption, fostering, and domestic abuse cases.

“Global data tells us that more than 75% of LGBTQ+ people experience discrimination at the hands of health and social care professionals,” said Dr Pentaris. Too many practitioners have never been taught how to work respectfully and effectively with gender and sexually diverse people.

This partnership is about changing that reality – not in the abstract - but in the daily encounters LGBTQIA+ people have with the state.

From research to real-world impact

Dr Pentaris’ earlier research informed recent legislative changes in Greece that cemented legal rights for LGBTQIA+ individuals and families. This led to training for around 800 professionals across the country.

The new initiative will use a rigorously designed randomised control trial (RCT) to test the training's impact. This will build the evidence needed for long-term systemic change.

“We are moving from one-off, goodwill training sessions to gold-standard evidence,” Dr Panagiotis explained. “The randomized control trial allows us to show, with real rigor, how affirmative training changes professional behaviour and, crucially, how it changes the experiences of LGBTQIA+ people using services over time.

That evidence is what convinces ministries and regional governments to ring‑fence and increase funding for this work.”

A win for students and academics

The collaboration also offers significant benefits for Goldsmiths’ students and academics. It creates a framework for student exchanges, PhD fieldwork, and staff exchanges.

This means Goldsmiths students could gain valuable experience working on community projects in Crete. They can then bring that insight back to their work in the UK.

“Social work is an applied social science – our job is to prepare students to respond to the realities in front of them,” Dr Pentaris said. “But those realities are no longer purely ‘local’.

Every classroom, every case load is shaped by migration, global inequality, digital culture, transnational politics and mobile communities. A partnership like this gives our students the chance to understand what practice looks like in a different system and then bring that insight back to their work in the UK.”

Shaping global practice

The work emerging from this collaboration will also feed into national and international practice guidance. Dr Pentaris is writing a national practice guide for social workers in Greece.

He is also collaborating with Doctors Without Borders on a guide for health professionals working with gender and sexually diverse people. The goal is to ensure LGBTQIA+ people are treated with dignity and care everywhere.

Author

South London News Smart London Desk Edited By Jimmy Nsubuga

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