Race Equity Statement of Intent

We are a charity committed to social justice and fairness and have a strong track record of challenging injustice – we want to be a charity for all Sheffield’s communities. We recognise that we have more work to do to be an anti-racist organisation.

Our commitment

Our organisational values include the following :

• We are committed to fairness, across our society and within our organisation.
• We are committed to challenging the impact of poverty, inequality and discrimination on the lives of the individuals and communities we help.
• We are proud of, respect and celebrate our diversity, the diversity of our clients, communities and our staff and volunteers, and are committed to being an inclusive organisation.

We have a zero-tolerance approach to racism and condemn all racist and discriminatory behaviour within and across our charity.

We commit to proactively identifying structural racism and inequality within our own policies and practices, whilst also challenging all forms of direct or indirect racism where we see it.

We recognise that many of our staff, volunteers and clients face hatred, racism and discrimination on the basis of their nationality, skin colour or religion and we stand in solidarity with them.

Why it matters

Systemic racism is a pervasive and insidious threat which persists both within our city and across Civil Society. It is evident in prevalence of deprivation, health inequalities and much more. As a result, minoritised communities are more likely to experience the circumstances and challenges which lead people to need our support. 

Our vision is that individuals, families and communities have the knowledge, expert support and confidence to solve their problems. Good advice and effective advocacy are empowering. They help to give people agency and control over their own lives. We must therefore work to continually improve the accessibility of our own services for marginalised groups and use our influence to press for change externally.

What we will do

We have the power to enact meaningful change and we plan to use it.

With our employees and volunteers, our partners, and the communities with which we work, we will take action to ensure that race equity is embedded in all we do.

We will commit to our Race Equity Action Plan, reviewing it quarterly with the Board and Senior Managers and evolving it as we develop rather than viewing it as a task with an end date.

We will work alongside our Cultural Diversity Group to ensure that racially minoritised staff are supported and heard and that their views inform our efforts to become an anti racist, equality-driven, faith-sensitive and supportive work environment.

We will provide training for all our staff and volunteers on different aspects of equality, diversity and inclusion and specifically on their role in supporting and enabling an anti-racist approach.

We will publish gender, disability and race pay gap data annually. With our HR & People Committee we will monitor and analyse data on representation of marginalised groups at different levels in the organisation and at different stages of the recruitment process and develop action plans to address under-representation.

We will seek out, build and maintain partnerships with community organisations in order to increase access to advice and advocacy for marginalised groups.

We will develop new mechanisms to ensure our work is informed by the voices and lived experience of our clients and we will undertake equality impact assessments of all service and policy developments.