Black Inclusion Week
10 – 16 May 2021
The aim of Black Inclusion Week is to raise awareness, tackle inequalities and celebrate the importance of black inclusion.
The theme for Black Inclusion Week 2021 is #BeTheChange.
The 5 objectives for Black Inclusion week are:
• Make us stronger as one community
• Create a commitment towards change
• Empower all and facilitate action
• Be a celebration of Black people in the UK
• Connect us through collaboration
The Council’s response to make us stronger as one community and our commitment towards change has been outlined in our Southwark Stands Together programme.
The aim of Southwark Stands Together is to address inequalities and eliminate racism by resolving the concerns raised not only by our employees but also our residents.
In September 2020 the Council approved the inclusion of two additional new council values creating a public commitment towards change:
• Always work to make Southwark more equal and just
• Stand against all forms of discrimination and racism
A key priority of the Southwark Stands Together Workforce workstream is to empower all to get involved and facilitate action.
The 7 workstreams cover:
• Engagement and Re-education
• Recruitment Practices
• Policies and Procedures
• Leadership and Management
• Employee Career Progression
• Culture Change
• Corporate Training Programmes
Here in Southwark we have been celebrating the achievements and impact of our Black Southwark managers in our Shine the light articles.
To view the previous articles click here.
To launch the new series of articles we will starting with the career journey of Melanie Medley our Head of HR (Interim).
In addition, we previously held a webinar entitled ‘Talk to us' Promoting the Careers of our black managers Q&A.
If you missed the Talk to Us event facilitated by Melanie Medley and Derrick Tawiah, then the recording from their event is available here.
To Connect us through collaboration Southwark Council is partnering with DWC Consulting for external independent advice, guidance, support and best practice on improving equality, diversity and inclusion for our Black, Asian and colleagues from other minority ethnic communities.
You can find out more about DWC Consulting here.
Internally we are seeking the views and collaborating with:
• Our corporate trade Unions Unison, Black Unison, GMB and Unite
• Our Staff Networks
• All employees through our solutions focussed conversations
• Our newly formed Employee representatives group
An employee representatives group has been established to ensure all our employees have the opportunity to get involved. Subsequently, in April 2021, we recruited 30 Employee Representatives to get involved in our work. They will have the opportunity to provide feedback on the work of the Southwark Stands Together (SST) workforce workstream.
The Employee Representative are key to ensuring employee voices are heard so that we can understand the lived experiences direct from our workforce to tackle racism and inequalities within the council.
Typical responsibilities of our SST Workforce Employee Representatives will include:
• Acting as a sounding board, providing feedback and temperature checks on the SST workforce initiatives – for example, this could involve reviewing distinct pieces of work across the different workstreams, or testing new initiatives before they are launched organisation-wide. Meetings between the SST Workforce Team and our Employee Reps will provide a safe space to provide feedback verbally, or if preferred this can be provided in written format.
• Providing a vital link between our staff and the SST Workforce team – sharing your lived experiences.
• Scrutinising, challenging, suggesting ideas to the SST Workforce team – to help ensure the programme delivers meaningful change, the initiatives are meeting employee needs and concerns, and delivers on the vision of the SST Workforce Workstream.
In recognition and to celebrate Black Inclusion week we are promoting a range of events throughout May 2021:
Further events will be added in due course but you can show your support for Black Inclusion Week by using and sharing the different images which are shown above. There will also be an opportunity to share your pledges and support via Yammer.
Communication is an important step towards change and has the potential to lead people to change their hearts and minds.
We can proactively do this by using our voices to engage, encourage and empower others. There are a variety of ways that you can use communication to “Be The Change”.
For example, you can Make your own pledge to be the change then use your own social media platforms to share this and raise awareness.
As well as sharing and liking posts about Black Inclusion Week. In addition, colleagues can also choose to share their own pledges via Yammer.
Further information for individuals on how they can Be the Change is available on the Black Inclusion Website, within their toolkit .