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Don't miss our seminar on 7 June
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Advisory Friends
The IEDP is delighted to announce our new initiative, which is the appointment of a number of Advisory Friends. These are people with expertise in various EDI fields who are willing to support the IEDP in a number of different ways, for example writing articles, sharing resources, speaking at events, and providing advice and consultancy. People who have already agreed to become advisory friends include Linda Bellos, Natasha Broomfield-Reid, Barry Fitzpatrick, Leander Neckles, Robin Richardson and Michele Taylor. We will be launching this new initiative at our AGM in June, so watch this space for further details!
IEDP accreditation dates
If you join the IEDP, or are already a member, you can apply for our accreditation process. If you are very quick you could still apply for the next round, as the closing date for expressions of interest is 29 April 2016. Your application would need to be confirmed (and the fee paid) by 13 May 2016 and the deadline for the submission of your portfolio would be 1 July 2016. Or if you need a bit more time, expressions of interest for the following round are due by 29 July for submission at the end of September. Further details on the accreditation page of our website
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If the world were 100 people
 Liz Skelcher recommended this short video by Good, looking at global statistics. Text Click on the photo to go to the website..
Human Rights Act for young people
 Ruth Wilson found this short video, aimed at young people, which explains the Human Rights Act Click on the photo for more information.
Human rights and trans people
 UK Human Rights blog highlighted this useful overview of how human rights legislation protects trans people by Kate Jukes, written to mark International Transgender Day of Visibility (31 March) Click on the photo for more information.
Being a trans employee
 LGBT activist Elly Barnes recommended this new report about the experiences of trans employees by Total Jobs Click on the photo for more information
Autism awareness mini film
 Recommended by Upworthy, this is a 90 second film by the National Autistic Society, showing what a boy with autism might experience when walking through a shopping centre. Click on the photo to watch the video.
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Do's and Don't of Diversity Monitoring
 By Julie Kaya
Considerations when monitoring diversity
In the past year, during the course of my work as an EDI specialist and organisational development consultant I have helped many organisations with their diversity monitoring practice. As a consequence, I have written guidance for organisations, and these 'do's and don'ts’ are a part of that guidance. It’s not by any means a complete list; rather it speaks to some of the issues or challenges I came across during the year. I did struggle a bit with fitting in 10 don’ts – and some of them are a bit of a stretch ... but I like the number 10. I would love to know what others have learned in similar exercises and what you think about my list.
Do’s of diversity monitoring...
- Do take the time to help people in the organisation to understand and explain the purpose and benefits. Monitoring is a tool to gain required evidence from which to target your resources effectively; it is not an end in itself
- Do have a communications plan in place that addresses people’s concerns. Consider the biggest issue - trust - and prepare accordingly
- Do ensure people responsible are competent and confident in their ability to respond to concerns
- Do expect people to misunderstand and to be suspicious, especially in the early stages
- Do offer an opportunity for two-way engagement on the issue to help manage concerns
- Do invest properly, even if it’s over time, in reducing under-representation or addressing unequal opportunities as a result of your findings
- Do reflect on data collection and its implementation and plan for the entire system – there are likely to be unintended consequences - plan for them
- Do ensure that data is properly managed; it needs to be legally obtained and retained for the purpose intended, should always confidential and kept securely. Survey Monkey or other products are sometimes available to half the organisation!
- Do gradually increase the groups / areas monitored in line with your business case as your inclusion practice becomes more sophisticated and more widely understood
- Do trial the option to tick ‘Do not wish to disclose’ and if you do, offer it to all categories in the same way. If you find you get better results for some categories than others consider what this data tells you.
... and Don’ts
- Don’t collect data if you are not planning to use the data proactively to improve – it will cause more problems than not collecting it at all
- Don’t try to combine monitoring data with data collected for other purposes even if it saves on admin. Keeping it separate supports confidentiality and increases the chances of responses being more accurate. It could also be unethical or even illegal if you collect HR admin data for one purpose and it’s used for another for example.
- Don’t give up if initial response rates are low. Have an ongoing action to improve response rates built into your management objectives
- Don’t allow misperceptions about why you are monitoring to grow – ensure your managers can address myths or misperceptions as they arise
- Don’t forget to systematically communicate to all stakeholders the results and successes of the programme
- Don’t create or perpetuate systems that allow people (particularly in hiring) to guess people’s background. This is unethical and will again cause problems for the future
- Don’t expect diversity monitoring to be ‘accurate’. People are not compelled to respond. Responses will inevitably be highly subjective and there are countless reasons why they won’t be accurate, especially early on in practice.
- Don’t forget language and conventions change over time and if people use dated ones in their responses it is still ‘data’ to be analysed and acted upon in the most appropriate way. It’s not a reason to vilify people who may not have come across the changes yet
- Don’t treat diversity monitoring like a satisfaction survey where a low response rate means less interest or relevance. Low figures in diversity monitoring can mean members of a group may need more support, not less.
- Don’t expect people to recognise themselves as belonging to the categories used, some categories are really quite crass but they are used mainly to allow benchmarking – that is not to say you can’t add or subtract if they don’t make sense for you
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Sound statistics
 This is our feature giving up-to-date statistics that Equality and Diversity professionals may find useful to their work, particularly in training and campaigning. This issue’s statistics have been compiled by Kate Hinton from several sources about disability - particularly relevant in the context of the reforms to social benefits and the overall austerity programme. |
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UK overview
- 11 million people have a limiting long-term illness, impairment or disability, equivalent to 19% of the population, or 1 in 5
- This figure has remained relatively constant over time.
- Only 17% of disabled people are born with their impairment and the prevalence of disability rises with age
- Rates of disability are higher in poorer areas as well as those with a legacy of heavy industry, especially coal mining.
- The incidence of disability varies geographically with the highest levels in the North East and North West England and Wales (34%, 31%, 31%) and lowest in the London, East and South East England (25%, 27%, 27%)
Living standards
- A higher proportion (19%) of people living in families with a disabled member live in poverty, compared to those without a disabled family member (15%)
- 21% of children in families with a disabled member are living in poverty compared to 16% of those with no disabled member
- Disabled people’s day to day living costs are 25% higher than those of non-disabled people
- Around 20% of households with a disabled person felt that their current home was not suitable for their needs
Education
- Between 2005 and 2011 there have been increases for all pupils achieving 5 or more GCSE grades A* - C: Pupils with no special needs 66.3% to 88.9%, Pupils with SEN and no statement 19.8% to 59.2%, Pupils with SEN and a statement 8.7% to 24.9%
- Disabled people are around three times as likely not to hold any qualifications compared to non-disabled people and around half as likely to hold degree level qualification.
Employment
- Disabled people are more likely to be employed now than they were. The gap between employment rates for disabled and non-disabled people has reduced by 10 % over the last 14 years.
- The employment gap in 2013 was 30% with disabled people nearly four times as likely to be unemployed or involuntarily out of work as non-disabled people
- More than a third of disabled people who are not in work would like to work
- The two most commonly stated enablers for employment are flexible hours and tax credits
- Disabled people are significantly more likely to experience unfair treatment at work, 19%, than non disabled people, 13%.
One to know about:
Harassment
- More than 20% of disabled people have experienced harassment in public because of their impairment
- 90% of people with a learning disability have been victims of hate crime and bullying
- Whilst crime has almost halved over the past decade for the non-disabled population it has increased by 3.7% for disabled people.
- Disabled people are three and a half times more likely to suffer violent crime and theft than non-disabled people
One to think about:
World Perspective
- The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that there are 1000 million disabled people in the world, equivalent to 15% or 1 in 7 people
- 80% of the world’s disabled people are living in developing countries
- Numbers are going up due to aging populations, chronic ill health and the effects of war and conflict
- WHO published a Global Disability Action Plan 2014 - 2020
Sources
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What do British Muslims really think?
By Ruth Wilson
Channel 4's recent programme, presented by former Chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission Trevor Phillips, is still available to watch on catch-up if you missed it Click here for the link , or if like me you couldn't face watching it because you were expecting it to reiterate and reinforce the usual islamophobic stereotypes. It was advertised by Channel 4 as being 'based on a rigorous survey of the views of British Muslims on issues from gender equality and homosexuality to sympathy with violence and terrorism.'
As might be expected, the programme provoked angry responses from many critics who did not feel that did what it claimed to do, i.e. represent the views of British Muslims. So to redress the balance, and to help us engage in an informed debate about the issues raised in the programme, here are just three of the many articles challenging both the methodology of the survey and the language and tone of the programme. I'm grateful to Robin Richardson for drawing my attention to these.
Here's what you really need to know about British MuslimsT
 This article by Ashitha Nagesh in Metro.co.uk argues that the way the results of the survey were presented focused on the negative and ignored the more positive findings. She also criticises the sample as being unrepresentative of the Muslim population, with a high proportion of the Pakistani heritage community.
What do Muslims really think? This skewed poll certainly won't tell us
Miqdaad Versi, writing in The Guardian, says of Trevor Phillips that 'all he seems to have done is discard nuance and appeal to the prejudices of viewers.' Like the previous article, Versi is critical of the sample selected for the survey, pointing out that it was focused on areas where at least 20% of the population is Muslim - likely to be both the most deprived and the most socially conservative communities.
Trevor Phillips' research on British Muslims is dangerous and wrong
 Maha Akeel's article in The Independent argues that it is not surprising that islamophobia is on the rise when 'a study like this plays into the hands of those who wish to spread hatred.' He concludes by saying 'Averting the dangerous mistrust between religious communities must be one of the key objectives of our time. It is time for accurate research, not witch hunts or trials by media.'
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Cucumber not cooker bomb
 School Equality recommended this article by the mother of the 'cucumber not cooker bomb' toddler writing on SeekersHub about her family's experience. Click photo to read
Why do black people get searched more by the police?
 This article by Anna Dannreuther, a trainee solicitor who works as a volunteer for RightsInfo, was recommended by UK Human Rights blog. It examines race as a factor in police stop and search decisions. Click photo to read
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Wearing the hijab as an act of interfaith solidarity 1
 Recommended by Ruth Wilson, this article from December 2015 by Asra Q Nomani and Hala Arafa in the Washington Post, asks non-Muslim women not to wear the hijab as a way of showing solidarity with Muslim women. Click photo to read.
Wearing the hijab as an act of interfaith solidarity 2
 Ruth Wilson was also interested to find this response to the Asra Nomani and Hala Arafa's article, by Dilshad Ali on Patheos.com, putting the opposing point of view. Click photo for more information.
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Terrific TED talks
This issue's TED talks have been selected by Ruth Wilson
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The beauty of human skin colour
In this TED talk, from February 2016, photographer Angelica Dass challenges the way we think about ethnicity and skin colour. She describes her Humanae project, which involved photographing thousands of people and cataloging every possible skin tone.
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How technology allowed me to read
Australian professor of law and prominent human rights activist, Ron McCallum's fascinating talk recorded in September 2013, about how technology has revolutionalised reading for blind people, and what barriers still remain.
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Account of the last IEDP board meeting
By Ruth Wilson
 As usual, here is a brief account of the most recent IEDP board meeting. This was held on 12 April 2016 and was a Skype meeting
Finance
Management accounts for the period up to 31 March were briefly discussed.
Advisory friends
The list of proposed individuals was reviewed, and all except one person so far have accepted. The next steps in the process were agreed. A follow up conversation is to be held with a Board member about ways in which individual Advisory Friends will be able to support the work of the Institute.
Accreditation update
Kate reported on a meeting with one of the IEDP's new advisory friends, Michele Taylor, who has agreed to take on the co-ordination of the re-registration process. This applies to Registered Members who wish to re-apply for registered membership once their three year period has expired. Ruth reported back from a meeting at Wolverhampton University. There was a discussion about having a section on the Members' Area of the website where registered members, board members and advisory friends could recommend relevant literature.
Website
Denise fed back on progress that has been made with the re-development of the IEDP website. There was a discussion about the member details list and what information it appropriate to collect. It is hoped that the new website will be ready to be launched by the end of April, and certainly by the middle of May.
AGM seminar
It was agreed to go ahead with 7 June and to book a venue in London for the afternoon. The focus for the seminar was confirmed as the forthcoming Immigration Act which is likely to have just become law. The format for the afternoon was discussed, as were possible speakers.
Next meeting
The next Board meeting will be at the AGM seminar in London on 7 June.
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Contact us
The Institute of Equality and
Diversity Practitioners
2 Old College Court, 29 Priory Street, Ware, Hertfordshire, SG12 0DE
tel: 0844 482 7263
fax: 0844 8225 215
email: info@iedp.org.uk
web: www.iedp.org.uk
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And finally...
We hope you enjoyed reading this newsletter and would welcome any feedback or suggestions about how we could improve it for the benefit of our members. If you have any ideas for future editions or would be interested in writing an item for the next issue please contact Ruth Wilson on:
ruth@equalitiesineducation.co.uk
The deadline for contributions to the next issue is 17 June 2016. Please circulate this newsletter to anyone who may be interested in our work or who may wish to join the Institute.
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