Brand by Guys & St Thomas' Foundation

We led an inital focused workshop that asked the Communications teams to explore why taking an anti-oppressive approach was key to the organisation's mission. We asked them to think about their role in driving the wider Foundation's Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion strategy and also introduced different ways of working and behaviours key to building anti-oppressive communications. For example, we created a ‘wall of wins’ to celebrate things the whole department were proud of in relation to their individual inclusion journeys, because recognising progress and learning is really important. The workshops were also designed to create an open space where teams could unlearn the ways that systems of oppression are embedded into communications best practice and learn from eeach other.

To help the teams understand and shape how they needed to show up differently,we co-created a set of equitable and inclusive communications principles. These principles emphasised proactive partnering with those from marginalised communities, listening first, working transparently, and prioritising equity in all communications efforts.

Following the development of the principles, we helped the whole department co-create individual action plans for teams to set out how they would embed and deliver equity and inclusion on a day to day basis. We also used this session to help teams understandhow the action plan would be managed, whether it was robust enough and whether commitment was ripe. We wanted to make sure that all teams understood the principles and felt encouraged and equipped to apply them, making anti-oppression a natural part of their workflow and decision-making processes.

We followed up with regular accountability and support sessions with Collette, where a core working group would come together to evaluate progress, discuss challenges and share learnings in a safe space on a quarterly basis.