Equality, Diversity & Inclusion

“The OSAB is committed to promoting equality and aspire to remove the barriers of discrimination in safeguarding adults practice across the county. Everybody is different and diversity will be celebrated and respected. Everybody will be treated fairly, with accessible information, advice and support to help stay safe and maintain control of their lives.”

OSAB’s commitment to Equality, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI)

OSAB is committed to the highest standards to protecting individuals from harm, abuse, and neglect without making any kind of discrimination against ethnicity, pregnancy, disability, age, sex, gender reassignment, marriage, sexual, orientation or religion as mentioned in the Equality Act 2010.

Although socio-economic status is not one of the protected characteristics under the Equality Act, OSAB recognises how this category has an impact on access to services. OSAB will ensure that social class does not affect safeguarding outcomes among its partners.

OSAB acknowledges that intersectionality exists within these groups and that each of these identities mentioned above could combine with another to produce variation in the form of discrimination and privilege. This means that not everyone experiences harm, abuse and neglect in a similar manner. The contexts and backgrounds affects safeguarding needs and impacts communities ability to access safeguarding services. OSAB will work together with its partners to ensure that no-one feels left out to access safeguarding services.

All safeguarding concerns will be treated consistently and fairly and will enable communities to access help and support, to live safer lives.

EDI in OSAB’s vision

OSAB recognises that the ability to protect oneself from abuse, neglect or harm will vary from person to person in the diverse communities across Oxfordshire. The Board commits to working in partnership with statutory and voluntary services, specialist agencies as well as the community groups to provide services that is best suited to meet this need. OSAB’s commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion means that every person supported by its member organisations is treated according to their individual needs, equally and without discrimination, and that barriers to accessing support are comprehensively addressed.

EDI Action Plan

Community engagement activities

Community and faith groups are often the first point of contact for families and individuals needing help and support. OSAB will therefore facilitate its partners to work together with communities to undertake:

preventative work
make an assessment of need
early help work including emotional support
advocacy role with the communities to increase access to statutory services

Data Work

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion data is important to identify gaps that have an impact on the kind of safeguarding support that needs to be provided to the varying needs of the ethnic and minoritised population group. Collecting and analysing EDI data needs a consistent approach across all safeguarding services and must be given right amount of attention and resource. OSAB seeks to analyse the currently collected data relating to EDI to understand what it says, what it is missing and how it will inform actions going forward.

Training

OSAB seeks to make safeguarding adult trainings more inclusive by

Developing trainings and toolkits to include the contexts, background and dynamics of harm abuse and neglect that can happen in different communities and groups of people
Working together with professionals and community groups to identify training needs around EDI
Ensuring that images in posters, campaigns and printed material are representative of Oxfordshire’s diverse population

Equality Act 2010 on Adult Safeguarding

The Equality Act 2010 is a set of anti-discriminatory rules to legally protect people from unfair treatment in the society. The general equality duty sets out standard on local authorities, employers, service providers, businesses and any organisations to:

Eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation
Advance equality of opportunity between different groups
Foster good relations between different groups

Protected Characteristic

The protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010 are:

Age
Sex
Sexual Orientation
Disabilities
Race
Gender Reassignment
Religion/belief
Marriage
Pregnancy

Approach for protection

Equality Act 2010 specifies two types of adjustment to enable equal access for people with protected characteristics. Reasonable adjustments and individual adjustments which is based on the needs of a group of people with particular need.

What actions can you take in case of discriminations

In case of discrimination, the act recommends to make a complaint against whoever is responsible and if this doesn’t solve the problem you could take the person to the court. Alternative, discrimination could also be reported to Equality and Human Rights Commission that can take legal action against authorities and make them accountable in terms of combatting discrimination.

Public sector equality duties

Equality Act has clear guidance for public authorities on how to successfully tackle prejudice and advance quality by considering all individuals when carrying out day to day work.

Resources from Safeguarding Boards, partner agencies and professional organisations

Local Government

Beyond “harassment and slurs”: Using Safeguarding Adult Reviews to Interrogate Discriminatory Abuse (local.gov.uk)

Discriminatory abuse: a briefing for practitioners | Local Government Association

NHS

News and Events (oxfordshireccg.nhs.uk)

LGBTQIA++

Stonewall (LGBTQIA++ specific information) The Stonewall LGBTQ+ Leadership Programme | Stonewall

LGBTQI dictionary IOM-SOGIESC-Glossary-of-Terms.pdf

Depend – Supporting the families and friends of trans people in the UK

Disabilities

Disability Rights UK How we can help | Disability Rights UK

Out of sight – who cares? (cqc.org.uk) – A review of restraint seclusion and segregation for autistic people and people with learning disability and/or mental health conditions

My Life My Choice | Home Charity run and for people with learning disabilities

Ethnicity and minoritsed population group

Safeguarding children from Black, Asian and minoritised ethnic communities | NSPCC Learning

csab-year-one-scoping-report.pdf (contextualsafeguarding.org.uk) International Scoping Report on supporting Refugees and Asylum Seekers

About us | Contextual Safeguarding

Faith based

Safeguarding people in faith communities | SCIE

Support and specialised services