Race Equality Week is an annual UK-wide movement uniting over 4,500 organisations and reaching over 2 million employees to address the barriers to race equality in the workplace. The aim is to encourage organisations to come up with unique solutions and facilitate meaningful, accountable and sustainable change.
The week is run by the organization, Race Equality Matters, and their mission for this week is as follows:
“To remove the barriers and provide the solutions to tackle race inequality.”
According to statistics released by the Home Office, 2022 witnessed a significant rise in hate crimes towards disadvantaged groups, with racist crimes rising by more than 19% from the previous year.
As teachers, railway workers, nurses, civil servants and many more are going on strike, it may be that this month is precisely the time for uncomfortable conversations across all sectors.
The theme for Race Equality Week 2023 is #ItsEveryonesBusiness, and we at CareTutor do believe that this is a nation-wide issue which needs to be addressed.
Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in the Care Sector
Skills for Care is a workforce development charity for adult social care in England. Their latest studies highlight that while social care is a diverse sector in terms of race (23% of people working in social care are from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds) we do not see that same level of representation at more senior levels, with only 16% of managerial roles being taken up by ethnic minority groups.
You can see their data on this here .
We know that people from diverse backgrounds continue to face challenges, barriers and negative experiences which can be linked to their race.
We want this to change.
What can you do?
When applying this topic to the care sector, the culture of a care setting can influence how people experience the care they receive from that setting.
Reducing prejudice and stereotypical attitudes towards individuals is an important step towards providing a fairer and more inclusive environment.
This can be challenging when people come from a variety of cultural backgrounds and experiences.
Here are a few suggestions for creating an inclusive environment in your care setting:
- Ensure that people from all backgrounds are treated fairly and have equal access to services and support.
- Use inclusive language to refer to people of different backgrounds and be mindful of any prejudices you might have about people of different races, ethnicities, religions, or sexual orientations.
- Recognize that people may have different cultural expectations of care and make efforts to meet those expectations whenever possible.
- We need to consider a whole range of needs and beliefs and what they may mean to the person we are caring for.
To learn more about how to get involved with the week’s events, you can visit the Race Equality Matters website here.
Training your care staff on their approach to this subject is also a great way to engage with the spirit of the week. Our brand-new Equality, Diversity and Inclusion course will give staff a deep dive into delivering the right type of person-centred care.
Our Brand-New Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Course
In conjunction with Race Equality Week, CareTutor has released a brand new CPD-Accredited Equality, Diversity and Inclusion course.
This is a required topic included within the Care Certificate Standard 4: Equality and Diversity. This course will provide you with essential information about equality, diversity and inclusion in a social care environment for social care workers.
Managers have a vital responsibility to ensure their staff are trained in this area.
Adapting a down-to-earth and common-sense approach, this course uses examples and animations to help you understand this important topic in an easier and more informative way.
Some of the areas the course will cover are:
- The Legal Perspective
- Racial and Cultural Diversity
- Disability Equality
- Sexual Orientation and Gender Reassignment
- Religion and Beliefs
Using scenario-based scenes and advocating good practices, this course will help you to gain a better understanding of the topic and how you can apply it in the social care environment.
More Information
If you are an organisation in the Health Care, Care Home or Domiciliary care sector, you can sign your staff up to take our newly launched Equality, Diversity and Inclusion course to become more aware of the subject and learn how to implement this into their daily practices.
Take a look at the course in further detail here.
