Skills for Care’s pledge to supporting equality, diversity, and inclusion in social care

I’m not a person of colour. I don’t have lived experience of racism or discrimination due to my race or ethnicity. I do have experience of growing up in Northern Ireland where equality, diversity and inclusion were a tangible part of our everyday thinking and experiences. Perhaps this is why equality and inclusion are such deeply held values of mine. From an early age I volunteered for the Northern Ireland Council for Ethnic Minorities and I moved to working for the Northern Ireland Equality Commission and later the Westminster Equalities Partnership.

When I started at Skills for Care, looking at the evidence, hearing from people from diverse ethnic backgrounds about their experience in social care and bringing my own experiences and passions, I was determined that we needed to do more around EDI. I established EDI as one of our four strategic priorities for the organisation. We’ve done research on people’s experiences of racism in social care, supported people from diverse backgrounds with their careers and supported employers to build inclusive cultures. This is only the beginning. We all need to continue to challenge, to understand and to change. Each person reading this blog has power in their everyday interactions to make change happen and we have power in our role as the sector workforce body to draw attention to the issues and to provide practical solutions.

My vision is of a world where social care is the most inclusive sector in England to work in – we are already one of the most diverse places to work so let’s celebrate that but also ensure that with diversity comes inclusion. The strength of social care is in celebrating, valuing, and recognising what makes people unique and supporting them to overcome challenges. To do this, it’s vital that the adult social care workforce reflects the society we live in, and that people feel included and are treated equally.

I should say, in following on from Oonagh’s closing note, that one of the things that made me apply for the role of Chair of Trustees with Skills for Care was the organisation’s strategy which gave such clear prominence to inclusion and diversity, both for the organisation and for the sector. As I saw it, it wasn’t done in a way that either preaches or “breast beats”. It sets out clear practical targets and ambitions – with an honest recognition of the scale and continuous nature of the challenges, no more so than around race equality. My reaction was that these are people I’d like to work with.

As a white man I have over thirty years’ experience of leading and managing in and around the social care sector. I’m proud of some of the achievements I’ve been involved with (they’re rarely solo, the best achievements) – deeply dissatisfied with others. My own abiding lesson is never to regard any aspect of this work as “job done”, but to recognise the constant challenges, especially of the endemic and pernicious nature of racism and the need for constant vigilance and action.

One such action on my part is to work to ensure better diversity in the membership of the board. I know my predecessors worked hard on this point and that we’ll continue to face similar challenges. But that’s not an excuse for relaxing. Nor is it a way of excusing the whole of the board, whoever they are and whatever their experiences, in showing leadership and accepting their responsibilities towards EDI and racial equality in line with our wider strategy.

In my hiring days I used a particular question at interview, which I found invaluable at distinguishing candidates, between those who think a good job (or sometimes not!) and those who convert thought and good intention into action. It was only later that I came to realise my surprise question is more useful if it’s shared beyond the interview room. The question…”Describe your own proudest personal recent achievement in the cause of racial equality or EDI?” Not the easiest question to answer outside the interview room either – me included… but addressing our individual answers to that question can be a significant step.