The work of CityCare's Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Team

Sarah Wilson, our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Officer, has written an article to highlight the projects/actions that CityCare's EDI team is currently working on. 

The ultimate aim of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) is to:    

• Eradicate prejudice and discrimination
• Eliminate barriers e.g. mental, physical, systemic or institutional etc.
• Establish a positive, sustainable and understanding culture for everyone

That is no small feat, especially when you consider the obstacles that need to be overcome such as a history of injustice, ingrained cultural norms and stereotypes that perpetuate inequalities.

However, these are the lofty aspiration that CityCare that the EDI team are striving for. We aim to educate, challenge and inspire our colleagues to achieve these goals.

Although it may sound cliché, change takes time but, just because you can’t always see change, doesn’t mean it’s not happening. Below is a brief overview of the actions/projects that we, the EDI team, are currently working on:

• Analysing staff survey data to compare CityCare’s demographics with Nottingham’s population to determine how we can better represent our community.
• Acting on your responses to the Bullying and Harassment Survey and contributing to the ‘You Said, We Did’ agenda to ensure EDI concerns are addressed.
• Supporting the implementation of the new Civility and Respect Toolkit, created to change and improve the culture within NHS organisations/providers.
• Developing a Reciprocal Mentoring for Inclusion (RMFI) Programme to increase representation of under-represented groups at our working groups, Committees and Board
• Revitalising staff networks to improve the diversity within organisational decision making and ensure everyone’s voice can be heard.
• Improving the variety and accessibility of resources available on the intranets such as designing posters, flyers, summary presentations.
• Introducing the ‘EDIfier’, a quarterly EDI newsletter promoting EDI events, sharing good practice and keeping you updated with what we are doing.
• Reviewing policies and procedures to ensure EDI issues are consistently considered and represented during the review process
• Improving recruitment practices to increase the diversity of our candidates and the people making the decisions.
• Remaining up to date and compliant with relevant legislation and newly introduced or updated standards.
• Working with our ICS partners to align EDI practices and learn from the knowledge and experience of colleagues in other organisation.
• Writing reports to ensure that we monitor and track our progress against our EDI objectives and enable us to be accountable when we are not achieving our goals.
• Supporting the organisations ‘Restoration and Recovery’ plan to ensure our colleagues have access to all the relevant information to aid their wellbeing at work.
• Providing learning and development opportunities such as Cultural Awareness and Cultural Intelligence training.

In the five months I’ve been with CityCare, I can honestly and confidently say that this company has done more to promote, celebrate and talk about differences and the EDI agenda than any other organisation I have worked for.

There is more work to do but in the meantime stay positive and please get involved in whatever way you can so CityCare can continue to be a great place to work for us all.