Last month we marked the 35th Black History Month. This presented a time to recognise the presence and achievements of those with African or Caribbean heritage within the UK. As part of the month, we were able to celebrate famous faces from history, lesser-known pioneers and Black people today who are pushing for greater equality in workplaces and classrooms across the UK. We also acknowledged that the racism and marginalisation that Black Britons have faced for generations continues to persist today.

The theme for this year’s Black History Month was “Time for Change: Action Not Words”. This theme underpins the fact that acknowledgement of the past must be accompanied by a commitment to tackle racism wherever and whenever it persists. This October, we’ve engaged in various activities to celebrate the month, while also producing some outputs to highlight that further action and change is still necessary. These activities include:

• Blog post to mark and celebrate the month. We produced a blog post for our website at the start of the month, to outline the purpose and topic of the celebration. The blog reflected on prominent historical figures and their achievements, as well as creating the case for further work to remove the disproportionate experiences of discrimination and systemic disadvantage experienced by black people.
• Staff social featuring a screening of ‘Subnormal: A British Scandal’. We screened Steve McQueen’s documentary ’Subnormal: A British Scandal’ which examines one of the biggest scandals in the history of British education, revealing that Black children in the 1960s and 1970s were disproportionately sent to schools for the so-called ‘educationally subnormal’. This documentary tells the story of how Black parents, teachers and activists banded together to expose the injustice and force the education system to change. It explores the controversial debates on race and intelligence that led to the scandal and the devastating impact it had on the children affected.
• Black History Month Knowledge Exchange. We were delighted to host a guest speaker, Nadine Boyne who has over 20 years of frontline experience in children’s social care and a wealth of experience in managing and coaching social workers within local authority social work departments. Nadine is a graduate of the Black and Asian Leadership Institute (set up by our own Meera Spillett!) at the Staff College- and that experience spurred her to set up her own business providing professional development to new social workers, especially those from ethnic minority backgrounds, who are struggling with burnout and imposter syndrome. As part of her talk, we reflected on privilege and power, equality and equity, and delivering effective change in public services for Black people.
• Pulse Special: Black History Month 2022. We were pleased to publish a special edition of the CordisPulse, which was produced to mark the 35th Black History Month. For this PulseSpecial we produced a digest of key reports, briefings and tools published in 2021 and 2022 across the sectors we work in that focus on disproportionality and highlight the need to strive towards racial equality in the UK.
• Disproportionality Bulletin. We presented an overview of the findings from recent research into disproportionality for people from ethnic minority backgrounds in some of the sectors in which Cordis Bright specialises, i.e., health and social care, children’s services, and criminal justice. Across these sectors, we found that Black people and people from ethnic minority backgrounds experience a multitude of disproportionate outcomes.

Black History Month may only take place over October, but it is a stark reminder of the challenges continuously faced by Black people. At Cordis Bright we are committed to considering these issues as part of our work and championing change. Last year we had company-wide cultural competency training, and this was followed up with the creation of the Cordis Bright Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Task Group. The Group developed a strategy with a number of accompanying commitments for Cordis Bright. These were:

• We aim to contribute to a fair and equal society, within our workforce, projects, and in wider society.
• We are committed to tackling the harm caused by inequity and discrimination, and the associated systemic barriers some face.
• We will embrace EDI in the workplace as we believe diversity and difference contributes to our organisational strength, skill and performance, and can therefore help improve services.
• We will always work towards employees having the confidence to be themselves at work and ability to bring their lived experience to work.
• We will co-produce and use other inclusive approaches to bring in a range of experiences and skills that are vital to achieving greater diversity, inclusion and quality in our work.

We all have a part to play in taking action to make the desired difference and we hope that by working towards and achieving these commitments, we can help create a more equitable and diverse organisation, and support the delivery of improved outcomes for Black and other minority ethnic groups.