EDI strategy
EDI Summary
Our Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) Strategy sets out Talk Well’s commitment, vision and ambition to do more to create an inclusive society and workplace.
We believe in a fairer future for all and we know that by working together we can do much more. We believe that everyone has the right to live without prejudice regardless of race, age, gender, disability, sexual orientation, social class, religion and belief. Everyone should be able to make a full contribution to society in their own unique way and live in a world which demonstrates respect and values diversity.
At Talk Well we have been working to achieve a more equitable, diverse and inclusive workforce by ensuring EDI is reflected in our values and embedded in our practice and our individual behaviours. We want to continue to drive change within our organisation, our practice and beyond, whilst always ensuring that the children, young people and parents who use our services remain at the heart of our thinking and decision making.
Why is Equity, Diversity & Inclusion so important to us?
Equity, Diversity & Inclusion is central and crucial to achieving our purpose as a charity and we are committed to making change happen at Talk Well. Working toward our vision, that ‘Every young person has someone to talk to when they need it most’, means moving towards an equity based approach and therefore our structures, our decision-making and how we work day-to-day should reflect this.
As part of our ongoing commitment to excellence we have set priorities for the Charity to help us achieve our EDI goals.
Our Priorities
Diverse & inclusive leadership
We aspire to be led by diverse, inclusive and effective leaders who:
- embrace the idea and challenges of creating an inclusive culture
- are prepared to question the status quo and
- will recognise and champion the contribution a diverse culture brings to our workplace and purpose.
Developing awareness and knowledge
We have always worked to make our free services as easy, equitable and inclusive to access as possible, recognising that for many children and young people there are already excessive barriers to them getting the help they want and need.
However, we recognise that we have more to do to develop organisation-wide knowledge and awareness surrounding Equity, Diversion & Inclusion as a whole.
Our priorities in this area are:
- Continue the work of our newly established independent Equity, Inclusion and Diversity Steering Group
- Provide mandatory training and awareness for all Trustees and staff
- Review and update our external brand and communications
- Measure inclusion and belonging through our annual staff survey and look for improvement.
Understand the barriers
We want to better understand barriers to accessing support and what more we can do to become more accessible. The experience of young people as they journey with us, particularly those who may regard themselves as marginalised is of great importance and we will use what they tell us to help us shape better policy for the future.
We will:
- Work with ‘non- accessing’ groups to better understand what barriers they experience to accessing mental health through face-to-face workshops and other opportunities
- Set EDI objectives and measures for leaders and managers to help improve access
- Work with our Young People’s Voices Group to help shape Talk Well Commitments to diversity and inclusion.
Attract talent and improve access to employment
We want to do all we can to remove bias from our recruitment processes and attract talent at all levels, including our board, from diverse backgrounds.
We will:
- Establish baseline data sets in all areas of the organisation for recruitment and access to training
- Review and revise our recruitment practices
- Review our employer brand to show we are an inclusive employer irrespective of age, gender, ethnicity, disability or socio-economic background.
How will we get there?
We will
- Put the needs of young people first and align with our core values to ensure free, easy, equitable access to our services without discrimination
- Work towards developing and publishing a three year EDI Strategy in September 2024 that aligns with our Vision and Strategic Priorities and considers the outcomes we wish to publish over a period of time.
Governance and oversight
As we move forward, we will set ourselves goals, based on our data against which we can measure our progress and we will hold ourselves accountable for these.
This will include publishing our data internally and externally and regular monitoring and reporting via the governance structure set out below. We will be transparent in how we do this and there will be visibility across the organisation including through our EDI panel, our staff survey and our Staff Advisory Group (SAGE). In driving forward change, we recognise that we might not always get it right but we are committed to learning from our experiences and driving continuous improvement.
The governance of our EDI work will be overseen by our Trustees and will be embedded across the organisation.
