Our Equality statement
The Trust is committed to ensuring that no job applicant, employee, service user, carer or member of the public is discriminated against either directly or indirectly, on grounds of gender, marital/civil partnership status, disability, race, colour, ethnic or national origin, religion or belief, age, social background, sexual orientation or gender status, working patterns or trade union membership.
Equality & Diversity
We are committed to promoting and championing a culture of diversity, fairness and equality for all our employees, potential employees, service users, carers as well as members of the public. We will do this by valuing and celebrating individual difference and acknowledging potential contribution to the continued development of the organisation which will in turn improve the services we provide.
Our Equality and Diversity policy covers all aspects of employment including vacancy advertising, the recruitment and selection process, training, conditions of service and termination of employment. To ensure that the policy is operating effectively the Trust will maintain records of employee’s and applicant’s age, ethnic origin, religion or belief, sexual orientation, gender and disability.
The Trust has a central Equality and Diversity Committee which co-ordinates and supports implementation and development of the Trust’s Equality and Diversity Action Plan and associated equality and diversity initiatives. Service Directorate Equality forums also function across the Trust to drive improvements in service delivery and accessibility for minority communities and service users.
Part of the Trust's Equality and Diversity Action Plan is to ensure that the composition of our workforce reflects not only the community we serve but also our service users. In reaching this goal we will strive to meet the following challenges:
- To understand, value and welcome diversity throughout the range of services we provide
- To measure, monitor, report on and evaluate our progress in achieving enhanced diversity, fairness and equality to inform future service development and employment practice
- To provide an opportunity for staff, service users, patients and carers to engage in the equality and diversity agenda
- To support the use of flexible working wherever possible to enable staff to achieve a better work life balance
Staff Forums and Networks
The Trust has a number of equality and diversity forums and networks which provide an opportunity for diverse groups of staff to discuss equality related issues, share good practice, and contribute to Trust policy. These include the Disability Equality Steering Group and Staff Network, Race Equality Steering Group, Age Equality Steering Group, Sexual Orientation Equality Steering Group, LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Trans) Forum, Multi-faith Forum, Spirituality Forum and Gender Equality Steering Group. We also actively work with the network group ‘Living in Both Worlds’ to support staff with mental health issues and to share and develop good practice.
Disability
The Trust has signed up to the Positive about Disabled People Standard and the Disability Standard. This means that we guarantee to interview all disabled applicants who meet the minimum criteria for any post advertised, providing the applicant has indicated on the application that they have a disability in accordance with the Disability Discrimination Act.
Being an organisation committed to those with mental health and learning disabilities, the Trust promotes and supports the employment of people who use our services. Where appropriate, we have service user and carer representation in our recruitment processes.
If would like to view our workforce information statistics and report please visit our Equality and Diversity page.
