London Borough of Redbridge: Equalities Training for Social Workers

The London Borough of Redbridge’s Senior Diversity Officer undertook an initial analysis of training needs through reviewing the legislative and policy context; analysing findings of a range of reviews, studies and inspections; and consulting staff. This informed the commissioning of Equality Works to deliver a programme specific to the needs of the borough. We agreed to provide training to supplement the Borough's work on Equality and Diversity for senior managers and front line managers/team managers as phase one of a training programme.

The overall objective of the training was to develop and communicate the vision for change and ensure that staff within social services were able to be as effective as possible in their duty to promote equality of opportunity. In particular the training was designed to enable staff to:

• Improve their knowledge around diversity and equality issues;
• Improve understanding of the impact that their knowledge or perceptions can have on the quality of service provided;
• Examine methods of service delivery and impact on service users;
• Focus on action planning.

As always we addressed the skills and knowledge with a competencies based approach specific to the trainees. However, prior to conducting the training we carried out a training needs analysis day. This involved interviewing the Cluster Management Team (CMT) and a selection of Principal Officers/Functional Unit Managers from across the cluster. This further refined the objectives and programme for the training days.

The Cluster Management Team had a consultancy and training day to work on the vision and strategy for equality and diversity and focus on how the vision is communicated to staff. The training was also attended by the relevant Principal Officers responsible for developing the Equalities and Diversity Strategy.

After conducting one-to-one interviews with the Director and Chief Officers and following a briefing on the Redbridge Social Services context, we agreed on a separate 2 day training course for Principal Officers/Functional Unit Managers from Community Care, Children & Families covering:

• A practical analysis of institutional discrimination;
• Application of the analysis to:
  • Professional leadership;
  • Performance management;
  • Team management;
  • Service delivery.

Significantly, and like all Equality Works programmes, the content of the training used examples drawn from the day-to-day work of trainees, in this case the social services sector.

Furthermore, approximately 60 Team Managers across social services received 2 days training covering different aspects of Equality and Diversity issues relevant to working in social services. The training covered:

• Understanding the meaning of equality and diversity;
• Showing respect and cultural awareness so that they could carry out their duties in a courteous and non-judgmental manner;
• Identifying how their actions and words are likely to be perceived by others;
• Gathering information sensitively and thoroughly from service-users to complete records accurately;
• Helping create an environment which is safe, welcoming and disability-friendly;
• How to use feedback systems to managers;
• Applying the up-to-date legal and regulatory framework to their day-to-day work.

In evaluating the effectiveness of the training programmes we proposed to undertake participant evaluation against training objectives, as well as following up discussions with CMT and Service Management Teams. The evaluation form given to participants covered:

• Standard questions about style and venue;
• Whether or not the course objectives were met;
• Confidence in presenting the vision for equalities to staff;
• Practical action resulting from the training.

Overall the training not only educated participants, it improved the general awareness of equality and diversity issues with the social services sector at the London Borough of Redbridge. The training has given staff the opportunity to consider different equality strands more effectively within their work. Furthermore, the training provided the borough with an opportunity to assess how they were doing in terms of Equalities competencies.