Black Lives Matter Pledge: 6 Months On (February 2021)

It has been six months since we published our statement on Black Lives Matter, which can be read in full here. In our statement, we showed our support for the Black Lives Matter Movement and pledged to do more as an organisation to bring about positive change for people from Black and ethnic minority communities in the areas we work in around Scotland.

Since we made our pledge, we have been committed to taking meaningful action. We have focused on gathering the views from our staff about what steps we can take to promote equality and diversity at Health in Mind.

In the first six months, we have:

• Started an open discussion among all staff about how we can further create an environment that welcomes and respects every voice
• Begun the process of forming our equality, diversity and inclusion group
• Held a session on the Black Lives Matter movement at our staff conference
• Reviewed and updated our equality and diversity policy
• Signed the charity pledge to always show the salary for all roles that we advertise, in a bid to address pay gaps and inequity in the charity sector
• Continued our work with Charities Against Hate, a coalition of UK-based charities tackling hate speech online, as online hate speech is often targeted at people from Black and ethnic minority communities
• Started to review our diversity and inclusion training, including anti-racism and unconscious bias

These actions are just a start of our sustained commitment, and we will continue to build upon this work in the future. We will next be reporting back on progress made against our pledge in the summer of 2021, one year on from when we first published our statement.  

We continue to stand with the Black Lives Matter Movement and other ethnic minority communities, and urge our community to do the same. If you have any questions on our work in this area please get in touch with us by emailing contactus@health-in-mind.org.uk.