Being culturally competent

Finding our way on the journey to being culturally competent.

By Normandie Wragg, former CEO

Being a ‘culturally competent’ organisation requires us to further develop the ability to understand, communicate with and effectively interact with people across cultures.

Cultural competence encompasses being aware of one’s own world view, developing positive attitudes towards cultural differences, gaining knowledge of different cultural practices and world views.

Over the past month I, like many CEO’s in the sector, have been having important conversations with staff teams about equality, diversity and inclusivity to consider how we can learn, adapt, and evolve in response to these important issues, both internally and externally. How we become culturally competent.

These issues are important to us because the people we care for, protect, educate and inspire, come from all walks of life, and so do we. We employ talented people from diverse backgrounds.

To this end I am proactively learning, listening, watching, and self-reflecting, as well as acknowledging my privilege, to embrace equality, diversity and inclusivity.

Personally, and in my role as CEO, I pledge to be more vocal in highlighting issues of racism and inequality and to support vital anti-racism work in opposing racism and promoting racial inclusion.

In order to turn my learning into action, I have set several challenges for Nugent in the form of pledges which include:

  • Conduct a staff listening exercise/forum for staff who have been affected by racism due to the colour of their skin
  • Conduct an Equality Audit with our services and our charity
  • Identify where we could improve our offer and culture to support our BAME beneficiaries
  • Review our policies on inclusion, equality and diversity
  • Ensure that our recruitment processes further reduces the risk of unconscious bias and discrimination
  • Increase BAME representation in the organisation to match the ethnicity profile of the Liverpool City Region (13.8%)

Our values will be a key part of embedding these pledges in work:

Integrity / Ambition / Courage / Compassion / Optimism / Respect / Dignity

We have also released our anti-racism statement, outlining how we will turn learning into action and become culturally competent and inclusive throughout our work and lives.

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