Diversity, equality, inclusion and discrimination are a key part of health and social care.

You will need to promote them during your work, when you are supporting individuals and when you are working with other people.  

Watch this heart warming short video (3:19) which demonstrates beautifully why love has no labels…

Note: You can click on the video settings in the bottom right corner to see the subtitles. If English is not your first language and there are things you do not understand, you can copy words or sentences into Google translate. 

Do not assume!

Some aspects might be judged wrongly. 

I’m going to share a personal judgement mistake that I made recently. 

We employ a brilliant person in our team who has cerebral palsy.  The team asked if we could go bowling together.  

I said no. I believed this is not an inclusive activity that everyone could participate in. I then discovered the team member with cerebral palsy had his own bowling ball and was actually a pretty good bowler. 

I made a poor judgement based on what I

Whilst we have put hair and eye colour into reasonably safe, people do wear coloured eye lenses, wigs, hairpieces and dye their hair different colours so it is not 100% safe to assume. 

By recognising and understanding our individual differences and embracing them, a productive environment can be created in which everyone feels valued.

We have demonstrated that it is important not to assume where there is even the slightest possibility that you could be wrong. This can be more complex for some people, for example, trans gender or disabilities.  

Here is another personal example…

Whilst I’m not very big, I do have a bit of a fat tummy. It never fully recovered from childbirth. (That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it). It is incredible how many people ask me when my baby is due because they assume I am pregnant. Can you imagine how embarrassed you would be if you asked someone the same question to find out they are just a bit fat. I’m giving you pearls of wisdom here. Never assume someone is pregnant as it might not end well for you!

In social care, equality is about treating people in a way that is appropriate to their needs.

This is very different to treating people the same. Equality is about valuing people and treating them with respect. It is about freedom from all prejudice and discrimination. These are principles that underpin basic human rights.

Equal opportunity and treatment is about making sure everyone is treated without discrimination or prejudices based on age, gender, sexual orientation, religion, beliefs and race etc.

The act of inclusion means fighting against exclusion. Fighting for inclusion involves making sure that all support systems are available to those who need support. It is everyone’s responsibility to remove the barriers to inclusion.

Discrimination

Discrimination is a preconceived attitude towards members of a particular group formed only upon the basis of their membership of that group that leads to less favourable or bad treatment of that person. The attitude is often resistant to change even in the light of new information. It is essential that you do not allow your prejudices to influence the way you work with individuals.

Labelling

Labelling is describing someone or something in a word or short phrase because of a set of characteristics. For example: ‘Rich’ if a person has lots of money.