Photo shows a large group of Barnwood Trust staff posing for the camera in a group.

Our diversity, equity and inclusion journey

Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) practice is at the heart of everything we do at Barnwood. Respecting differences enables everyone to be included and valued on an equal basis.

In this blog we describe how we have been actively trying to improve our DEI practice at Barnwood, what we have learned from that work so far, and what we are doing next.

We have committed to diversity, equity and inclusion being truly at the heart of everything we do at Barnwood, everything we say and everything we deliver. It matters because respecting differences enables everyone to be included and valued on an equal basis. Ensuring we include a range of perspectives, views and experiences will foster creativity and innovation in our work. Getting this right is fundamental for us to be able to do our work well, to meet our goals and to be an authentic and respected employer and agent of social change. In short, we want all our practices to be anti-discriminatory and anti-oppressive.

Building a diversity, equity and inclusion strategy

We have undertaken this work through learning from others: for example, the Association of Charitable Foundations (ACF), the Funders for Racial Equity Alliance, the Just Foundations Initiative, local Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) networks, reading widely and being facilitated by specialists.

We launched our first DEI strategy in 2021, basing it on the ACF’s Pillars of Stronger Foundation Practice on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. This gave us a good structure to work from and we soon had a large and comprehensive spreadsheet setting out a range of activities. But moving from a conceptual spreadsheet to a comprehensive programme of change was not straightforward.

We recognised that to work on DEI effectively, you need to work on a wide range of different issues, using a joint approach : both relational and structural. The relational approach needed to focus at a self-reflective, behavioural and attitudinal level and the structural approach needed to focus on organisational processes, procedures and working practices which underpin DEI. We couldn’t see how it was possible to do one without the other.

Relational approach to DEI practices

The kinds of relationally-based DEI work we have undertaken  so far have been as follows:

  • Introducing the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and using it actively within and between teams to help understand our differences, and why we work differently, as a basis for introducing recognition and tolerance of difference.
  • Increasing our awareness and knowledge about disability, neurodivergence and mental health through focused training.
  • Undertaking a 6-month programme facilitated by Time for New Ways to learn how to be anti-racist. We followed this up with quarterly accountability sessions to feedback on what actions we had taken that we committed to.
  • Enabling a consistent approach to people management, to support and strengthen the DEI behaviours in our team, such as:
    • Learning how to have crucial conversations, which included learning how to give constructive feedback.
    • Learning to use the concepts of Transactional Analysis for more adult-to-adult interactions, reducing a tendency to rescue and be unclear about boundaries (also with Time for New Ways).
    • Recognising the ‘drama triangle’ (victim-rescuer-perpetrator) and turning it into an ‘empowerment triangle’ (coach-challenger-creator).

Structural approach to DEI practices

The structural approach we have taken includes the following:

  • Introducing co-design activities with members of Barnwood Circle as a basis for many of our activities, to ensure our work is informed by diverse perspectives. For example, developing Themed Funding criteria for Short Breaks and assessing applications; and collaborating on an anti-racism project for Barnwood Circle.
  • Changing our constitution so that we could recruit trustees directly to enable membership of the Board to comprise diverse life experiences and ways of thinking.
  • Researching the origins of the Trust’s wealth as a way of committing to transparency and accountability. We published the findings of that research in 2022 as well as a statement about what we would do in recognition of these origins.
  • Introducing competency-based, anonymised, recruitment for staff and trustees, with guaranteed interviews for disabled and neurodivergent applicants and applicants with mental health conditions.
  • Implementing a consistent Equal Opportunities monitoring framework for the recruitment of staff, trustees and Barnwood Circle members.
  • Developing a new workplace adjustments policy and accompanying framework, based on an externally conducted analysis by Business Disability Forum of our current practices, and involving our staff.
  • Being a participant in the Trust’s own Empowered Employers campaign to help us learn how to remove barriers to employment, alongside other employers in the county.
  • Reviewing how we celebrate as an organisation to ensure that events organised by the Trust are secular (i.e., swapping out our Christmas party for an annual ‘thank you’ event), whilst at the same time encouraging staff to celebrate or mark any event that they choose and invite others to join them, such as to mark Ramadan, Remembrance Day, Christmas, Holi and Pancake Day.
  • Collecting equal opportunities data on applicants for the Trust’s funding to review who is, or is not, applying or being successful in accessing funding.
  • Implementing the findings of a disability access audit to ensure that our building is as accessible as possible for disabled and neurodivergent people and people with mental health conditions.

Our learning so far

What have we learned from our work on DEI practices to date?  Such a lot – and mostly the hard way – best summarised as having good intentions but not always getting the practice right.

Reflecting on the journey so far, our main learning to date is that we should have communicated internally more clearly, more frequently and more comprehensively about WHAT we were doing, HOW all the things we have been doing link together, and possibly most importantly of all, WHY we were doing these things. Without the communication, a lot of the work we have done on DEI has remained a bit opaque at best and hidden at worst.  A strategy on a spreadsheet is neither motivational, nor accessible, and hard to bring to life. The effect of this lack of communication has been that the purpose behind much of the work that we have done has not gathered the momentum we need for DEI to become more visibly present and with more focus in our everyday work.

For example, work on MBTI, crucial conversations and having adult-to-adult interactions were not seen as integral to, and foundational for, DEI work. We should have been more explicit about this, more often. Focusing on self-reflection and self-awareness is not always a comfortable exercise, and some people are less familiar with it than others – it can raise personal challenges that people may not want to address.

And it has led to some misunderstandings. For example, our lack of regular communication led to an assumption that we had ‘cancelled’ Christmas. We didn’t spell out enough the reason behind changing our ways of celebrating together. We wanted everyone in the Trust to enjoy a party at the Trust’s expense but we didn’t want to exclude members of our team by associating it with Christmas.

Work that we have undertaken so far will need to be maintained and revisited in the future. A prime example is that we have very accessible premises for disabled people, but they are not necessarily culturally accessible. This is part of ongoing development work for us to stay attentive to.

In 2022, we committed to creating a strategic advisory role on our team for a person of colour, but the more conversations we had with people of colour the less appropriate this seemed – as if one person could represent all people of colour. We can see now that this is inappropriate. We thought we might create an advisory group of people of colour, but again, in consultation, we realised that this too was tokenistic. We need our activities and practices to be influenced and shaped by people with lived experience of racial prejudice and marginalisation linked to all protected characteristics.

What DEI work are we doing next?

We are now working with The Better Org, a specialist DEI consultancy, to develop a clear roadmap and plan to direct our future work on DEI, starting from where we are and working with what we have already done, to give us really clear direction for where we want to be. And communicating about it along the way.

Get in touch

If you are interested in anything in this blog, have any comments or suggestions, or would like to work with us on improving our DEI practices, get in touch with Sally Byng, our Chief Executive at sally.byng@barnwoodtrust.org or phone 07891 392391.