The organisation has grown significantly in recent years and seen a marked increase in the diversity not only of the children it serves and their families but of staff and volunteers as well.  The Trust already ran a diversity awareness session as part of its induction programme however it was felt that more was needed in an organisation where people were coming together to work in a challenging environment from a variety of cultural, educational, professional and social backgrounds.  The aim of the training was to therefore to develop greater diversity awareness to enable staff and volunteers to:

• Improve care for the children and their families
• Give staff greater confidence in dealing with people from cultures other than their own
• Improve working relationships.

The Trust initially commissioned Jacqueline Hill of J Hill Associates to run a one-day pilot for senior managers based on an existing Cultural Awareness training course developed by Jacqueline in association with the National Minority Ethnic Network of Age Concern England.  The workshop was well received and the senior management team agreed that the core models used and Jacqueline’s facilitation approach would work well at the Trust.  Jacqueline was asked to develop a tailored version that would cover all aspects of diversity and be deliverable as a 2-hour foundation course for all staff and volunteers.  The foundation course would then be followed up by internally run team-based workshops to apply the learning.  The foundation workshop objectives were to:

• Increase participant’s awareness of what diversity is, how it affects them and their interaction with others
• Enable participants to be more open with each other and the people in their care about diversity issues
• Become more enthusiastic and motivated to learn more; particularly about specific diversity issues represented by the children, families and staff at the Children’s Trust
• Learn practical tools and models to support participant learning.

Jacqueline delivered the foundation workshop to 320 staff and volunteers over the course of 5 months with some scheduled in the evenings to make it easier for shift-based staff to attend.  Following the workshops, managers were asked to develop an outline of follow-up activities for their teams.

The workshops were well received with 98% of participants agreeing that the course achieved what it set out to do.  Participants were asked what they gained from the course.  Examples include:

• “Not to judge others so quickly, think before speaking!”
• “I have gained awareness of other people’s views and found it very rewarding in understanding different cultures & backgrounds.”
• “Thinking about “un-stereotyping” my conscious brain and unlearning assumptive behaviour.”
• “The course was really good. I found it very interesting and fun, we could have gone on for another hour or so, as there was so much interaction with everyone in the training.”
• “The best diversity awareness training session I have attended. Very dynamic and flowed very easily.”

Isabelle Labonte, Training & Development Officer at The Children’s Trust commented: “Jacqueline is a dynamic and engaging facilitator and this is well reflected in the evaluations.”

Sue Kaemena, HR Director at The Children’s Trust, commented, “Diversity is a very large subject and Jacqueline worked hard with us to deliver a foundation that was well received by all staff, as well as economical and practicable.”

J Hill Associates enabled The Children’s Trust to run the workshop in-house so that it can be included as part of the on-going training programme for staff and volunteers.  The Children’s Trust are also working towards Investors In Diversity accreditation.

What has happened since

Six months later the workshop has continued to have an impact as a number of managers have carried out follow-up activities with their teams and one manager explained how attending the workshop had made them more motivated towards gaining the Investors In Diversity accreditation.  Comments from staff and volunteers indicate that the workshop has had an impact at all levels and throughout the organisation.

Sally Jenkinson, Director of Children’s Services at The Children’s Trust, commented, “The level of awareness of diversity issues is much greater now, especially with those working directly with the families.  The training has instilled a level of confidence that we all can do something positive to make us a more inclusive organisation and it has motivated us to better meet individual cultural needs.”