Our journey towards Equity, Diversity & Inclusion: the past 18 months

 Over the past 18 months, we have: 

• Developed our EDI vision statement - Setting out our commitment to continuous improvement (see our EDI page).
• Collaborated with Knowledge Bridge - To explore race equity as an organisation and what we can do collectively and individually to dismantle systemic racism.
• Added an EDI module to our annual staff/facilitator survey - Providing baseline data to effectively measure our progress over time.
• Established internal Learning Lunches for staff/facilitators - Run by our talented staff/facilitators themselves, these informal sessions provide an opportunity to delve into a subject and consider possible actions for individuals and the Academy.Topics have included; gender identity, ageism in the workplace, the importance of diversity (delivered by Sir Geoff Palmer), white guilt, critical race theory and race equity.

• Reviewed all of our programmes - Ensuring the validity of the content and our theories of change. We also developed EDI-specific content for our programmes. 
• Delivered a CPD day on inclusive facilitation for all of our Associate Facilitators across the Social Enterprise Academy.
• Implemented ongoing reviews of our recruitment process – Ensuring the use inclusive language, that posts are advertised widely among under-represented communities, and that they do not perpetuate barriers.
• Started a process to establish a culture of feedback within the organisation allowing people to know that they have a safe space to raise any issues or concerns.

Our next steps:

We have carried out a review of our first year of activities, seeking the views of a wide range of people including; staff, facilitators, Board members, and learners, to inform the development of our EDI programme for 2022/23. 

Our areas of focus will include:  gender, disability (including invisible disabilities), leaders’ behaviours, understanding our values and how they relate to EDI, bystander intervention, a culture of feedback, belonging and communications. 

We will provide a range of training opportunities this year starting with unconscious bias and moving on to general diversity and inclusion training and disability awareness.