News

Diversity is all about what makes us individual – wouldn’t life be boring if we were all exactly the same? Across the world and even in our community at Derian House there’s a range of ages, ethnicity, languages, and genders.

While it’s important to be racially tolerant, it’s also worth remembering that there is a whole spectrum of diversity. Sometimes there are things you can’t see, like sexuality or religion, that makes people “different” to ourselves.

The important thing is to always accept and respect everyone else, even if they do, see, and believe things differently — this is called inclusion. There are some people in our world who only like others who look and believe the same as them. This is a prejudice: thinking badly of someone before you even know them, just because of something like their religion or sexuality.

Promoting and supporting diversity at work is really important to us. It’s part of being an outstanding charity and it shows that we value each other as individuals.

A diverse workforce means a place where everyone feels able to participate and achieve their potential. The law sets minimum standards but at Derian House we go beyond what we legally have to do because welcoming everyone with open arms is what we stand for. It adds value to us as a charity and helps employees wellbeing too.

It’s important to recognize that a ‘one size fits all’ approach doesn’t mean fairness and equality for everyone as some people have different needs, values and beliefs.

Legally, there are a number of protected characteristics. In the UK, these are: age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion and belief, sex and sexual orientation. It’s against the law to treat anybody unfairly based on these differences.

Over the year we’ll be looking at each characteristic in more detail to understand what this means for us and how it may affect us.