How Scouts is becoming anti-racist

We’re aware of how painful the past few months have been for Black people and communities, including our members and colleagues. We’ve started taking action, but we know there’s still more work for us to do to become anti-racist.

The first step was creating spaces to listen to our Black colleagues (and all staff  affected by racism) so we could understand how to support our people and tackle racism at Scouts.

This wasn’t about asking or expecting people to take on this work; it’s an ongoing commitment to making sure people’s views and experiences shape Scouts’ actions.

To be clear, we know this may not have felt safe, comfortable or easy. We made sure people knew we would receive feedback in whatever way they were happy to give it, including anonymously and through an online forum.

We also signposted people to the Black, African And Asian Therapy Network, so they could seek support outside of Scouts if they wanted to.

We’ve asked all of our staff to learn about anti-racism and make a commitment to continue learning what it means to be actively anti-racist as colleagues, as managers, and in the work that they do.

We shared resources to help people get started, making it clear that it wasn’t the responsibility of (Black) colleagues, friends, or family to educate people. We encouraged people to use team meetings to begin important conversations about making Scouts an actively anti-racist organisation, with the support of Hannah Kibirige, our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Manager.

Going forward, we’ve set out five actions that we’re taking for anti-racism at Scouts:

• We’re reviewing and removing barriers from our volunteer recruitment processes to increase representation at all levels.
• We’re embedding anti-racism tools and learning within volunteer training and inductions.
• We’re setting up community engagement forums to involve members of diverse ethnicities in our decision-making.
• We’re amplifying the voices and experiences of Black, Asian and minority ethnic young people and volunteers.
• We’re embedding inclusion in all we do, providing young people with opportunities to learn about race equality, rights and freedom.

We’re looking for input in developing our community engagement and learning opportunities. If you’re from a Black, Asian or minority ethnic background and would like to be involved or share your own experiences and ideas about anti-racism at Scouts, please get in touch with Hannah by emailing hannah.kibirige@scouts.org.uk.

Finally, we know that these are small steps – tackling systemic inequalities properly will take time and work. For us, this is the start
of a much longer journey.