Challenging Barriers, Building Trust: Our Commitment Beyond Race Equality Week
Connection, Belonging and the Heart of Our Work
Here at the DECC, we think a lot about connection and belonging. So much of our work is about trying to support feelings of connection, belonging and security for children whose early experiences have often left them feeling afraid of connection, isolated and unsafe. We know that carers too can feel isolated and alone as they struggle to contain their child’s distress as it reverberates out into their relationships.
Working Through Difference to Build Trust
A big part of our job is trying to build strong therapeutic alliances with people at times when deep connection might feel really daunting for them. There might be lots of differences between our life experiences and theirs that could act as a barrier to them feeling accepted and understood by us: differences in race, gender, sexuality, economic status, class and many more are sadly still often associated with notions of status and worth. It’s our responsibility to find ways to meaningfully connect through this complex picture, acknowledging any barriers to trust and safety and trying to build a sense of real openness and collaboration as we go.
“It’s our responsibility to find ways to meaningfully connect through this complex picture.”
Our Ongoing Commitment to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion
The DECC started in 2020, shortly after the death of George Floyd and the renewed focus on the Black Lives Matter movement and its ideas. Along with Action for Children as a whole organisation, The DECC has tried hard to embed the principles of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion into all levels of our work over the past 5 years. We have an Equality, Diversity and Inclusion working group which aims to drive progress.
One of the ways we have done this in recent years has been by participating as a service in Race Equality Week and by following Race Equality Matters’ 5‑day challenge, which is a series of bitesize videos, information and other thought‑provoking resources aimed at sparking personal and organisational reflection on barriers to inclusion, with a different focus each day. This year the overall theme was #ChangeNeedsAllOfUs.
Reflections from the Week
- What a committed and enthusiastic team we have. Despite everyone being busy, the sensitivity of the subject matter, the inevitable technical glitches and the slight bleary‑eyedness as computers and people waited for that first cup of coffee to kick in first thing each day, there was really good attendance and engagement in all of the sessions. The week reminded me how proud and lucky I am to be part of such an open, compassionate and dedicated team of people.
“The week reminded me how proud and lucky I am to be part of such an open, compassionate and dedicated team.”
2. We watched an eye‑opening social‑psychology video about the Bystander Effect: the way in which human beings tend to follow each other’s responses to situations in order to stay part of the ‘group’. If one person doesn’t intervene to challenge an unjust situation, that sets norms that make it harder and less likely for other people to do so. Conversely, if one person does challenge something, other people tend to follow and do the same. Sometimes I find that social injustice issues can feel so big and overwhelming, it’s hard to stay hopeful and motivated that they can be challenged. This video reminded me how quickly challenges to injustice can gain momentum if we are brave enough to stand up and be counted.
“Challenges to injustice can gain momentum if we are brave enough to stand up and be counted.”
Understanding Privilege in Practice
In my experience, some people find the word ‘privilege’ jarring when it comes to thinking about how our differences and life experiences can impact on our power and status in different situations. I think this reflects people’s understandable discomfort at being labelled as ‘privileged’ with their perspective dismissed as a result. For me, there is a big difference between talking about ‘privilege’ as a dynamic phenomenon that shifts and changes in different situations and ‘privileged’ which feels more fixed.
We watched a video which suggested that one way to understand privilege is by thinking about the number of times a person feels they could say no or go against the grain within a particular social context without experiencing significant negative consequences as a result. The idea being that the more privilege you have, the freer to say no you are. I found this framing a neat way of describing privilege in practice and how it shapes our thoughts, feelings and behaviours. There were certainly times over the course of the week when I realised I needed to ‘check my privilege’: that my initial assumptions about a subject were skewed by my privileged experience of it and that I needed to actively seek out perspectives from people with lived experience of it in order to get an accurate understanding.
Looking Ahead: Keeping Equity at the Centre
The DECC will keep on striving for greater equity and social justice across all levels of our work: in interactions with each other and with people who access our service; in our policies and practices; and by trying to promote awareness and positive change in wider systems around Children in Care. We are very aware, for example, that we are a predominantly white team and that that might be a barrier for some people to feel comfortable using our service. We would like to be more representative of the communities we serve.
I know that conversations, reflections and ideas inspired by this week will continue within our team in the days, weeks and months to come and we’ll keep trying to do better. In the meantime, if there is any way that we can make you feel more included in any of the work we do, we really want to know about it so do please get in touch.
