We want everyone connected with Barts Charity to feel valued and respected. We will create and sustain a truly inclusive culture where everyone feels they can contribute. We know that this will take action and we must keep working at it.
We recognise that a diverse Barts Charity is not just the right thing to be, but will also make us better at what we do. Embracing a breadth of perspectives and experiences will help us to make better decisions and be more effective and impactful in all our activity.
We will be transparent about how we deliver on this commitment. We will publish our objectives and report our progress (or lack of it) so that our colleagues, supporters, beneficiaries and stakeholders can hold us to account.
Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Principles
- To encourage and champion an inclusive and aware internal culture through actions and resources.
- To create, update and keep under review our governance structures, policies and procedures to ensure that EDI is embedded into all our activities.
- To better capture, monitor and analyse data to develop evidence from which to learn and drive change.
- To apply unbiased and inclusive funding processes and ensure the activities we fund are inclusive in their design and their delivery.
- To have diversity across our staff and non-execs who each feel able to realise their full potential and who better reflect the communities we work with and for.
2023-24 EDI Progress
We believe that our commitment to EDI is best demonstrated through action. In our last financial year we have:
- Collected the first year of data about diversity of grant applicants and grant holders as a baseline data set so that we can begin to explore whether our funding processes are inclusive, fair, and free from bias.
- Updated website imagery and photo library to ensure our visuals better represent people from ethnically diverse backgrounds, reflecting our local population.
- Implemented a new social media management platform which provides better analytics about our audience demographics, which will provide baseline data to inform how we can diversify our digital audience.
- Introduced a Menopause Policy and Guidelines.
- Trained two staff to become Mental Health First Aiders and provided all-staff training.
- Welcomed students from Tower Hamlets secondary schools for work experience.
2024-25 EDI Implementation Plan
There is always more we can do. Our plans for 2024-25 are as follows:
Culture
- Continue to provide work experience to Tower Hamlets secondary school children working with The Switch. [see a quote from one of them below.]
- Review our external events to ensure there is better speaker and guest representation.
- Consider how the breadth of the East London population we serve is better reflected in the case studies we use to communicate about our funding.
- Closer liaison with Barts Health Comms Team and EDI groups in development of collateral based on hospital sites to ensure that the staff and patient profile is reflected.
Data & insight
- Analyse the second year of data about diversity of grant applicants and grant holders in autumn 2024 so that we can begin to explore whether our funding processes are inclusive, fair, and free from bias.
- Use social media analytics to reach a more diverse digital audience.
- Run a third annual personnel diversity survey, comparing results to the previous year and potential benchmarks.
Funding
- Continue to develop funding policies and processes that further support creating an inclusive and fair organisational culture where we fund.
- Develop a public statement of commitment to, and activities associated with, patient and public involvement and engagement in funding activities.
Personnel
- Undertake an externally facilitated formal review of our recruitment process to reach people from more diverse backgrounds and remove bias in the assessment process.
I think that work experience is important because everyone needs a viewpoint from early on in life to see how it is. Sometimes the placement you receive is not always what you imagined but still giving it a go may make you change your mind and learn about a new sector. The staff at Barts Charity treated me as they did their colleagues, so it really gives you an idea of adulthood.SB, work experience student