Measuring the impact of your efforts can light your path forward using evidence-based decision making. When you know what has been successful, or not, you can develop a strategy that is data driven. In the sports and Physical Activity (PA) sector there is uneven data and no ready blueprint for how to reach all groups within the population and for some, this is the first time it is being attempted. This means there will be mistakes along the way, but it also presents an extraordinary opportunity to break new ground.

As everyone is aware, finding funding for your organisation can be an uphill battle. Establishing secure metrics for how you measure success will be invaluable in demonstrating why these endeavours should be funded.

1. It will help you understand what EDI initiatives work

Every organisation has Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) work they are proud of. Keeping track of your work allows you to learn and build on each initiative and prevents you from repeating mistakes across the organisation. Maintaining good records and case studies that you can share across your sport and PA can keep you moving forward. Join our Community of Practice to hear and learn from EDI efforts across the sector. Contact sport@inclusiveemployers.co.uk for more information.

EDI as a concept can seem overwhelming and it is difficult to know where to start. Establishing a baseline of data can help narrow down exactly where and how to intervene. Participation rates and demographic information can help pinpoint groups that aren’t being engaged by your efforts and qualitative insights from surveys and focus groups can identify why.

Measuring impact can be critical in motivating change. Whether your organisation is experiencing fatigue or requires convincing, providing concrete data about successes or gaps can help to inspire and reinvigorate your colleagues. Sometimes, EDI work can feel like a lot of slog for very little reward. Being able to measure the impact of your actions can demonstrate or remind you how important it really is.

2. It will help you measure success

Finally, evaluating your work can help unearth positive stories. Being able to share successes can help engage more people from diverse groups by showing a willingness to invest in communities and demonstrating accountability.

How can we go about it?

How to evaluate your EDI data

Participation rates can be an indicator of improvements in inclusion as your sport or PA grows more appealing to different groups because of your efforts. Keeping track of retention and drop-out rates over time can capture trends and identify areas where there are barriers.

If you have high performing athletes, it can be valuable to measure the success of athletes or participants from your underrepresented groups and how much they are able to achieve. This will help measure whether your EDI efforts in the pathway have successfully opened opportunities or removed barriers for athletes from underrepresented groups.

1. Look at your leadership

Understanding which identities and experiences are represented in your leadership can help drive change at the highest levels. There are useful indexes to help you compare against the rest of the sector, such as Sporting Equals’ Race Representation Index, but it is more important to compare against your aims.

For example, are you aiming to be representative of the sport or physical activity as it stands now? Or how you would like to see the sport and physical activity grow? You might have 20% ethnically diverse people or people from the global majority which matches the representation of the wider population in your area.

However, if your leadership team is made up of 12 people and your sport or PA is underrepresented in ethnic diversity it might be beneficial to have a range of people from different ethnicities in your leadership team, in which case the percentage becomes less important than the impact.

2. Measure your demographics

When measuring demographics, it can be hard to narrow down on intersectional identities as you are working with lower numbers that may not be safe to disclose. This doesn’t mean that intersectional experiences should be neglected; there are a wealth of experiences that can help identify specific barriers when we treat people as a whole, rather than by an individual characteristic. If you are not able to collect much demographic insight on intersectional experiences, then seek it out through other means such as qualitative methods or partnership engagement.

Qualitative methods can include engagement and satisfaction data. By conducting surveys, interviews or using focus groups you can get rich information about how different groups experience your sport or physical activity. You can gain keen insights into how people feel accepted, included and supported at each level from team, coach, club, active partnership and across facilities.

3. Evaluate the success of your programmes

Evaluating the success of your programmes and partnerships can be extremely useful beyond understanding the impact of that specific initiative. Alongside measuring the reach and impact, it presents you with the opportunity to gain further insight from those that have participated and by identifying those that haven’t.

4. Build a bank of EDI data

Finally, building a bank of data by auditing the availability and accessibility of sports facilities, equipment and infrastructure geographically can identify both where to direct resources and why people may not be engaging.

If you want to find out more about sharing good practice across the sector, please contact the Sport team by filling in the form.

The post How to measure the impact of EDI in Sport and Physical Activity appeared first on Inclusive Employers.

I have played women’s rugby for almost 20 years and have played across the country, starting in Brighton RFC, spending my last season at Sheffield RFC and this latest season at Shelford RFC (near Cambridge). I have been a part of county and regional teams at various points, especially earlier in my career when there was less competition. At this point in my life, I am happy trundling around the pitch, taking advantage of my natural assets (a low centre of gravity) and trying to compensate for my natural weaknesses (‘it’s like watching someone run slow-mo through a bog’) and as a result as, one recent spectator remarked, ‘spending most of my time getting up off the ground’.  

Expression of gender and sexual orientation

My sports team has always been a place where different expressions of gender and sexual orientations have been prominent and life-changing. In my local under-18 team, back in 2010, there were a number of trans and LGB players, and it was a revelation – suddenly, it was accepted to be different, almost not worth speaking of, whereas at home and school, I faced walls in every direction. Every subsequent team has continued to provide a different view of what gender means and affirm support for someone who has never fit comfortably into ideas of femininity. I will be forever grateful for the safe space and role modelling my teams provided me. This is not to say that sports are a perfect bubble, free from inequalities; I’ve faced biphobia in a few rugby teams, I’m well aware of the racism being documented in rugby and, as with most women’s sports, have been fighting for resources and equal respect for the past 20 years. Equally, however, without the friends I have made and the examples of living authentically, there is no way I would feel as comfortable to be who I am as I am today. All this is to share the impact of inclusive sports and how it can be a safe space specifically for trans people to explore understandings of their own gender in an environment where gender stereotypes are challenged.  

Trans discrimination in the UK

 I am very conscious as I continue turning up to training each week that for my trans sisters, this affirming, safe space has been ripped away from them and that sporting bodies across the sector are contemplating whether to allow trans women to play. From the time I was playing at under 18s in 2012, to completing my last season at Sheffield in 2022, reported trans hate crimes have risen by nearly 1300%. In Jan 2023, the Daily Mail alone published 115 articles on trans people and of these, 100 (87%) could reasonably be categorised as negative.

The fact that a trans woman was granted asylum in New Zealand on the basis of discrimination experienced in the UK should be a sign that there is a severe problem. Yet, I continue to hear arguments that presume policies start from a place free from bias.

At this point, with an average of 154 articles on trans people published per month for the last seven years up to 2022, it would be almost impossible not to be subliminally influenced or have a disproportionate understanding of how many trans people are participating in sport.

According to the 2021 census, within England and Wales, trans people make up 0.5% of the population and trans women 0.1%. Before starting conversations around trans inclusion policies, those involved must understand the broader context we are operating in the UK. The unceasing media coverage that presents trans people, and specifically trans women, as a threat to cis women has created a toxic discourse and an overshadowing of some major threats to women’s sport (lack of investment, sexism, sexual harassment, uneven experiences of injuries, discrimination etc.). If the aim in creating these policies is to start from a position of neutrality, without acknowledging biases that have formed due to the media representation of trans people, you will have failed before you have begun. 

 Trans inclusion and allyship

An act of allyship for this pride is to think critically about the media coverage of trans people. Do you think the coverage is proportionate? Out of the news sources you read or listen to, how many positive stories about trans people do you come across? How many negative? Which voices are loudest? How do you feel in response to these articles? Research shows trans women of colour experience disproportionate rates of fatal violence – is this being acknowledged or covered in the media you see?

If we dig deeper into the Daily Mail statistics, it suggests that on average there were three negative articles published about trans people a day. Can you imagine the impact this has on your trans colleagues, friends and families?  Trans people are in more need of allyship than ever.

Recognising distortion in the picture presented by the media and how it impacts the people around you is one crucial step you can take to restore balance to this destructive narrative. 

Supporting trans inclusion in sport

Inclusive Sport has a range of blogs, resources, and webinars to support you and your organisation.

• Read our blog :Transgender People In Sport: Why Inclusion Matters
• Use the resource Transgender myths and facts factsheet – available to members only
• Use our resource Transgender inclusion guidance – available to members only
• Sign up for our webinar : Inclusive Sport: Trans Inclusion in sport and physical activity – Members get five free spaces in our webinars, and non-members can pay per seat.

The post Allyship and Pride in Sports appeared first on Inclusive Employers.

There are many different ways to volunteer, from local clubs and activities to national events.  Volunteer week is a time to celebrate all the heroes fueling our sector! 

There are also many individual benefits to volunteering as it can have a positive effect on mental wellbeing as well as supporting people to develop new skills. It is a great way to make friends and feel part of something. 

Research has shown that volunteering is not as inclusive and accessible as it should be, and due to this, the demographic of many volunteers is not reflective of society.

We want everyone to have access to the benefits of volunteering and ensure people can see themselves reflected in an organisation’s volunteering staff and the participants.  

What is our starting point? 

I wanted to start by framing the context as lots of organisations exist that have grown around a commonality of the people involved, such as ethnicity, cultural heritage, religion and belief/belonging to a faith centre, disability, socio-economic group, sexual orientation and gender identity. That’s because people want to go to clubs where they feel welcome and comfortable, and sadly people have often experienced racism, religious discrimination, ableism, classism, homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, sexism and other types of discrimination in clubs without a specified focus on a commonality. 

In this sense there is huge diversity in the clubs/organisations that exist in the UK and that includes the wonderful volunteers who give their time to them. 

A ‘lack of diversity’ can mean different things

Firstly, if clubs are organised around a particular protected characteristic/area of diversity (and we are not thinking intersectionally), then they lack diversity because the group is homogenous. 

Secondly, is our data and understanding focussed on clubs/organisations focussed around membership to a National Governing Body (NGB), or an ‘NGB/internationally recognised’ competition structure of a sport?  Research shows that these type of organisations often over-index people from white backgrounds who live in more affluent areas. 

The correlation between building relationships and increasing diversity

If all the above points are true, then increasing diversity is all about building relationships and creating understanding as diversity is all around us; we’re just not coming together enough.    

This is about getting to know the people and organisations in your local area. Understanding why you’ve not connected before, what barriers might have been put up in the past, recognising them, apologising for them and rebuilding relationships. And thinking about how you might be able to connect now. 

It’s good to understand what creates that welcoming environment and why people/participants/coaches/volunteers in certain organisations feel safe and happy to be themselves. Think about how you could create that environment.  

Could you collaborate with other organisations? Could you hold some joint events? In early spring this year, we saw many high-profile and local sports teams holding open Iftar events during Ramadan, which brought people from different communities, religions and cultures together to experience breaking their fast as a group. 

In June we often see lots of great sporting events and physical activities which celebrate Pride and LGBTQ+ inclusion. Could your organisation hold an event for Pride to show your commitment to LGBTQ+ inclusion? For example, Cycling UK’s volunteer network took part in Stonewall’s Rainbow Laces Campaign to show their commitment to LGBTQ inclusion. If members of your organisation don’t identify as LGBTQ+ or don’t feel comfortable to be out, can you link in with a local LGBTQ+ organisation to gain some knowledge and support so you can be inclusive and welcoming.  

Local and national organisations exist which can provide information and support you to know more about every protected characteristic. They may also be able to provide you with information about local groups, faith centres etc. that you could contact to build relationships with. 

Case Studies 

• Dream Big desi women is an excellent example of an NGB supporting local areas to build a volunteer base with a different demographic to the people they usually engage. 

The programme, funded by Sport England and led by the ECB’s cities and volunteer programme, at the time headed by Shruti Saujani, had ‘the aim of inspiring 2,000 South Asian women to take up volunteering roles in cricket.’ 

Shruti explained that the programme was about engaging with your audience, understanding what’s important to them, and building relationships. Shruti and the team spent time getting to know the women who would become their future coaches and their families. 

The programme was a great success and many South Asian women who had never considered cricket coaching are leading fun and engaging All Stars sessions across the country. 

• Another great inclusive volunteering programme which saw 361 volunteers with learning disabilities and support needs volunteer at the Rugby League World Cup last year is the programme between The Rugby League World Cup and the charity Community Integrated Care. 

This programme shows the strength of collaboration in creating more inclusion in volunteering. Different organisations will have strengths in areas that you don’t, so being able to learn from them and work together is key. Sport England’s Jenny Betteridge, Strategic lead for volunteering, describes the programme in more detail. 

Collaborate with Inclusive Sport

When you partner with Inclusive Sport, our expert Inclusion and Diversity consultants support you in creating strategies and practices to achieve your inclusion goals. We offer practical solutions and are there to guide you every step of the way. Feel free to contact us for an informal chat about how we can work together.

The post How to increase the diversity of volunteers in sport appeared first on Inclusive Employers.

On the 22^nd April in 1993, at the age of 18, Stephen Lawrence was tragically murdered in a racially motivated attack by a gang of white youths. This year marks 30 years since his murder. Stephen Lawrence would have been 48 years old – a life full of promise, unlived.

Recently my colleague Ruth Eghan wrote a really powerful and poignant blog about the effect of Stephen’s murder on the Black community. Ruth also provides tips for Black colleagues/staff members and advice for allies on what you can do differently to support the Black community and other global majority groups. Reading it got me thinking about what else I could be doing.

Stephen Lawrence’s racially motivated murder was not an isolated case in the 90’s and the combination of grief and repeated racial injustice experienced by the Black community in the UK meant that Stephen Lawrence’s murder could not be ignored.

During their time of sorrow and grief, Stephen’s parents, the now Baroness Doreen and Neville Lawrence fought tirelessly against a corrupt and racist system for justice for their son.

The public enquiry into Stephen Lawrence’s murder, the momentous Macpherson Report, was published in 1999. It shed light on the multitude of police failings in the investigation of Stephen Lawrence’s murder which were ‘rooted in police incompetence, police corruption, and institutional racism’.

What has changed since the 1990s?

We’d all like to think that society has changed in the last 30 years, but has it? For example, when we look at sport, in the last year alone, we have seen numerous reports and investigations into very different sports, and the results have been staggeringly similar. There is a problem of bullying and racism.

News stories, quite rightly, highlight the accounts from individuals who’ve experienced racism during their time in sport, we’ve also witnessed leaders in sport making overtly racist remarks in public whilst trying to excuse the behaviour of their peers, clubs, and cultural environments.

But what is often detailed in these reports and investigations is the manifestation of deep-rooted structural racism. The type of racism where fingers can’t be pointed, where (mainly) white people can’t stand open-mouthed aghast at ‘how terrible those racist people over there are’, whilst never questioning their own part in this. 

Structural racism lives within us all; no one is immune; if we’ve been raised in the UK and have gone to schools that don’t acknowledge our colonial history, read the topical headlines of the day, watched the TV, and worked in environments where only 1.5% of Black people are in senior positions then we are part of that structural racism. Our perception of race and our bias needs to be unlearned, and the first step is recognising it.

When a culture is accepted and normalised by the majority, it’s hard to be the person to go against the tide and voice your concerns, it’s hard to bring that first follower on board, but this is the way to create a movement and to make change happen.

Having the data and surfacing the issues within an organisation is always a good thing; we do need to know to address it. We also then need to work together to address the problems that have been raised.

But ‘we/they’ also needs to become ‘I’. If we all stop blaming ‘them’, the faceless organisation and change the narrative to ‘what I can do’, we begin to see the change.

Suppose I take responsibility for what I can do. In that case, I must consider how I may blindly follow structurally racist norms, values, processes and procedures in my everyday role and life.

I need to keep learning and understanding what I can do differently. I have spent some time asking myself the following questions, but I know there will be thousands more questions that I haven’t thought of, and I have a long way to go on my journey to anti-racism.

The questions we need to ask

Am I following a business process that was probably implemented many years ago? Was this process developed by a homogenous group e.g. a group of white people? Am I seeing that the output of this process is continuing to benefit a homogenous group? What am I doing to question and raise this within my organisation?

This could relate to a multitude of policies, processes and experiences.

• How you identify which organisations to work with, support and promote.
• How you provide grants to clubs and organisations.
• How you select teams/athletes.
• How you recruit people to your organisation.
• How you referee or judge a competition.
• How you decide what schools to work in.
• How you treat your colleagues and teammates.
• How you conduct a meeting.
• How you pay people.
• How you develop people.
• How you create a culture of inclusion.

What can we all do differently? 

• Research – find organisations and people doing things differently from you/engage with new contacts/audiences. Research the area you are working in, look on social media, attend networking events, build trust. Share your findings with colleagues. Let’s celebrate those organisations, let’s get involved, volunteer, find out about them and their members.
• Gather insight – who are you working with? What is the demographic? Does it include/over-index people from Black and other global majority groups? If not, find out why not? As we need to redraw the balance.
• Is there bias in your selection process? Do you really know your players/athletes and what affects their performance?

Understanding for example, that the experiences of a Black athlete from London who has had to move across the country to an area with zero ethnic diversity, leave their family and friends and join a team where all of their peers, staff, coaches etc. are white, could massively affect their performance compared to their white peers.

Or that the same athlete could also be LGBTQ+ and not feel comfortable to be out in that environment, they could also be neurodiverse and not feel psychologically safe to tell you, etc.

• How could you make the environment inclusive and safe for people to voice their experiences? How could you make their transition to a new place better?
• Do you have biased rules around appearance related to hair/kit (consciously or unconsciously)? If you think something needs changing, raise it with colleagues and explain why it’s biased.
• Do you only engage with the schools you’ve always worked with? Have you made efforts to build relationships outside of your norm?
• Do you stereotype your colleagues’ skills? Do you ask team members who are Black women to do administrative tasks/book meetings/organise the food? Who in your team gets to work on the interesting projects which expose them to more senior leaders? If it is white colleagues, do something about it.
• Carry out ethnicity pay gap analysis and an equal pay audit. Find out where the issues are and develop a plan to make your pay structure more equitable and communicate this to staff. If you don’t have the power to do this, raise it with your network groups, at EDI meetings, in staff surveys etc.
• Is your staff development inclusive and supporting Black colleagues to advance in their careers? Are you engaging network groups in learning & development conversations? Are colleagues who are promoted internally, paid the same as those who apply externally?
• What do you do personally to ensure you can see your blind spots? How to you check yourself?
• How can you be better at being anti-racist and actively making a difference?

These are questions we need to ask ourselves so that we can play our own part in overturning systemic racism. If we leave it to ‘them’ and continue to blame institutions we are all a part of, then we may find ourselves here in another 30 years, and we cannot afford that to happen.

Learn more by attending our online panel discussion for Black Inclusion Week: Unspoken Truths of Allyship May 11, 2023, 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm, or speak to your account manager about your anti-racism journey.

References

Journal of Law and Society, Vol. 26, No. 3 (Sep., 1999), pp. 298-322 (25 pages), Published By: Wiley

The post How allies can support antiracist cultures in sport appeared first on Inclusive Employers.