Hi all,

As you may recall, the DCP is developing its inclusivity work and I thought you might welcome an update on progress.

The last couple of months have been heavily focussed on developing the policy and strategy through consultation and collaboration. There have been a number of different ways in which we have been doing this, including and not limited to:

Informal discussions: The task and finish group of Guilaine Kinouani, Yvonne Stewart-Williams, Zenobia Nadirshaw, Anna Daiches and I have been connecting with various groups in order to get their input on how this work is developing. For example, Guilaine is connected with the minorities in clinical training group, Zenobia has strong established networks within the black and minority ethnic mental health networks. These are just a couple of examples of the many informal ways we are reaching out to get input on this work.

Reference group: As people have been contacting me to express an interest in this work, I have been adding them to a mailing list I have, in order to keep people updated and gather opinion. There are no restrictions on this group and so it has both DCP members and non-DCP members on it. If you would like to join this list, please email me on [email protected]

Discussion forum: This is open to DCP members and can be accessed here – http://www.bps.org.uk/networks-and-communities/discussions/division- clinical-psychology/equality-diversity

Invitation responses: I have been invited to speak with various groups about this work and have not yet declined an invitation, so that has been a great opportunity to connect. This hasn’t always been in person, but the digital age has still enabled connection. For example, earlier in the year I spoke with a group of very insightful and inspiring third year trainees on the Plymouth Clinical Psychology programme.

Open Forums: Two open forums were held in March, one in Manchester and one in London. These were open to anyone who wanted to attend.

I am pleased to say that these and other connections have helped to inform this work greatly. New ways of reaching out are still developing too. For example, I recently had contact from Debbie Wood after she heard about the work. She kindly set up an online survey and shared the information with her networks interested in LGBTUQ issues. The data from this survey will be available soon and I will incorporate it into a final report which will go out to all DCP members.

One of the challenges we have faced along the way is that there are a number of different groups across the British Psychological Society, looking it inclusivity work. As is sometimes the case in BPS work, these groups are not necessarily aware of each other. I know that there are plans to make communication easier across the BPS, but for now we are doing our best to share ideas and collaborate on plans. As an example of how we are doing this here, Anna Daiches sits on both the task and finish group for the DCP strategy and a BPS group looking at issues of social justice. I am also adding Chairs of different groups to my email list, which keeps people as up to speed as possible. This connects with another issue which arose from the open forums, where it was noted that the web discussion forums on this issues are only accessible to members of the DCP. Obviously this isn’t a very inclusive approach and I hope it can be resolved soon. Jamie Hacker Hughes has raised it with the BPS administration and technical support, and I have been pressing for progress too. It is hoped that the discussion pages will soon move to an open area of the BPS website.

In more positive news, when the task and finish group last met we discussed the development of three actions to come directly from the consultation processes: Mentoring, Inclusivity Awards, A DCP Inclusivity and Outreach Officer. Here is a bit more detail about those discussions:

Mentoring We all agreed that a mentoring system would be good to have and explored ways to do it. Guilaine is leading on this bit and we’re having discussions with other groups already doing it to. The suggestion is that we create a document which can be distributed to all DCP members which captures key demographic descriptions. This could for example ask people to state their preferred way of describing their sexuality / gender / ethinicity, or just state prefer not to say. This form could also ask if they want to be a mentor (and describe why) or if they want to access a mentor (and describe why). Anna has an example of a form which we could build on. This could also be used as a way of monitoring the demographics of people in our profession to see if it becomes more inclusive with time. We said this would be best managed by Membership Services Unit.

Inclusivity Awards We discussed how equality & diversity work is often taken from a position of criticising people or services for what is not happening and how it can be useful to also have a positive reinforcement too. We spoke about the Athena Swan Award and are going to propose that the BPS develops an inclusivity award, which could be applied across the various networks. It could have different levels, be phased in and awarded annually. This would be part of a self-assessment / scrutiny system too, in order to encourage all networks to reflect on their practice, policies and culture from an inclusivity perspective.

Inclusivity Officer We said there should be an inclusivity officer on the DCP executive. This person would be responsible for things like outreach, developing member networks focus on inclusivity, driving the strategy forward and connecting with other organisations and settings outside the DCP. We felt it would be at least a 2 day per week job. We are currently putting together a person specification for this which will then have to go to the DCP executive committee for approval.

We are also looking at more focussed peer mentoring. This is likely to be closely linked to the mentoring documentation and focussed on how people support each other, this may be particularly important in areas such as mental health. There is a survey due to be disseminated soon, looking at mental health in our profession. We will have access to that data and so it should inform our work too.

Our next steps are to complete the final draft of the policy and strategy within the next 6-8 weeks. This will then be made available for all to comment on. It will also be presented to the DCP executive committee. After that, we will make any necessary final edits and launch it at a CPD event in Autumn.

The organisation of the CPD event will be led by the Minorities in Clinical Training Group, with support. It will be well-funded and will be just the next step in this work. The intention is to make sure positive progress is achieved in this area, but never viewing the work as ‘finished’. Inclusivity work is never done, we can and must always improve.

Please feel free to contact me with any ideas you have or examples of good practice. We are very keen to bring people together in this work and learn from each other it is a challenging area, but one which is important to us all.

Stephen Weatherhead PSU Director