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INDUSTRY: Hospice Care
EMPLOYEE NUMBERS: 150-200
ACCREDITATION(S): Investors in Diversity Silver
Helen & Douglas House was founded in 1982, and we are the world’s first children’s hospice. We care for local terminally ill children and their families at our hospice in Oxford, at home or in hospital with vital end-of-life and respite care. We help children live their lives to the full even when that life is short.
Celebrating the diversity of the children and families that use the palliative care services that we deliver is at the heart of all that we do, and we understood that our staff group was not as representative of the people that we served.
We wanted FREDIE to underpin everything that we do at Helen & Douglas House to ensure that we could make real and measurable progress against our diversity goals.
We believe that embedding fairness, respect, equality, diversity and inclusion is essential to understanding and supporting our families, staff and volunteers and we look forward to continuing our journey in building inclusivity into everything we do.
Jane Long, Helen & Douglas House CEO
We were first attracted to the Investors in Diversity process as we wanted a structured framework that would help us build a solid foundation to start creating change, break down barriers and improve our workplace practices.
The tailored action plan provided us with clear, actionable steps to enhance our inclusivity efforts and build on the work we had already done.
We were impressed by the depth of knowledge and expertise of our Diversity Advisor, and their willingness to learn more about our organisation and the work that we do to ensure the guidance was personalised to our people and the children & families that we serve.
The impact of Investors in Diversity can be felt across the organisation, it has enhanced our understanding of equality and diversity issues and enabled our staff team to ask questions, be comfortable being uncomfortable, engage in conversations, truly listen to lived experiences, and embrace and celebrate our differences.
Our staff feel more valued, included, and respected. We are supporting each other more than ever before through staff network groups, lunch & learn sessions and our ‘share your story’ campaign.
The ‘Share your Story’ internal staff articles has had a profound effect on our colleagues. We all have such unique backgrounds, interests, cultures and characteristics and it is important to us that we embrace and celebrate our differences. Our amazing colleagues who have bravely shared their stories are breaking down stereotypes and have enabled us to appreciate and understand the diverse experiences of our team.
National Centre for Diversity
PO BOX 1741, Huddersfield, HD1 9GA
Call: 0800 288 4717
Email: admin@iiduk.org
