By Andrew White, Head of Independent and Community Living.
At Irwell Valley Homes we are launching our LGBTQ+ Ally programme in Pride month 2023. It is something we have been working on for several months, but what is it, why do we need it and what do we hope to achieve?
Irwell Valley Homes values the diversity of the communities we work with and the colleagues we employ, but we know we can do more to ensure we hear the more marginalised voices in our communities, and more to understand the experience of the LGBTQ+ colleagues who work for us.
Over 25 social housing providers (plus more affiliated LGBTQ+ organisations) in the north-west of England are members of HouseProud NorthWest. HPNW, for short, is the network for social housing providers to improve the way we engage, support & deliver services to our LGBTQ+ communities and colleagues across the north-west of England. By sharing good practice between members Irwell Valley developed our own LGBTQ+ Ally training course.
A conversation with colleagues at Stockport Homes inspired the Ally approach – that is, to bring the audience along with the two hosts of the training, one being a member of the LGBTQ+ community, the other a “straight ally”. Through lively and accessible content, participants will be encouraged to explore their biases, build knowledge and confidence, develop empathy – and ultimately – to think, relate and act, as an ally to the LGBTQ+ community.
Our home is – or should be – our refuge and our place of safety. Research by the University of Surrey (“No Place Like Home”, 2017) found that 60% of trans people felt their neighbourhood was an unsafe place to live and one in five gay men reported modifying their home in some way (e.g. moving pictures or books) to hide their sexual orientation from a visiting repairs operative or housing officer. A third of respondents also felt that their housing provider was not able to deal effectively with issues like harassment.
Likewise in the workplace, Stonewall’s “LGBT in Britain – Work Report” (2018) found that more than a third of LGBT staff (35 per cent) have hidden that they are LGBT at work for fear of discrimination. One in ten black, Asian and minority ethnic LGBT employees (10 per cent) have been physically attacked by customers or colleagues in the last year. Nearly two in five bi people (38 per cent) aren’t out to anyone at work.
So as much as we think we provide inclusive services to our customers and that we feel our colleagues can be their authentic selves, the reality for some people may be quite different.
The ally training aims to support colleagues to be more supportive to their co-workers and to our customers. We hope it may change people’s behaviour, raising and challenging unconscious biases. We want colleagues to feel more confident in stepping up or speaking out when they witness exclusion. We also want the format to inspire other colleagues who may represent other groups or communities to lead on their own awareness training, bring their experience and expertise to a wider audience, helping breakdown any barriers to productive and healthy colleague and customer relationships.
The pilot sessions we have run have been well received, and from them we have a number of LGBTQ+ colleagues, and allies, ready to deliver the training. We’ll learn from and modify the training as we roll it out, seeing which areas land well, and which need review. None of the colleagues delivering the sessions are ‘trained trainers’ – but we are all passionate about making a difference, improving people’s experience and creating a better understanding of the diversities we seek to promote.
We hope the training will help people understand that our society will function so much better if we stop, and listen, asking respectful questions about each other, remaining curious and open to lifestyles, communities and cultures, other than simply the ones we identify with ourselves.