Nancy
15-07-2008, 02:42 PM
Project Overview:
The management of a London Borough Primary Care Trust identified that they wanted to deliver an organisation wide diversity awareness programme that improved working conditions for all and the service they provided to the public.
Training Attention, in partnership with Patrick Weekes Associates designed a programme to facilitate individuals to:
· Acknowledged Prejudice
· Ask Questions
· Challenge Discrimination
We delivered 2 ½ day session to all members of the organisation, including board members, in groups of 15. Each group was a diagonal slice with people learning about what was important to different areas of the trust.
The sessions included:
Metaphor model for Working @ your Best
Modelling stereotyping, prejudice and discrimination
What’s a prejudice you used to have but lost?
What’s a question you always wanted to ask but didn’t want to offend anyone?
We were very lucky within this contract that our rules of; diagonal slicing and ensuring that all levels of a system are involved in the change, had already been agreed by this organisation before they booked us.
The sessions were enjoyable, challenging and often very emotional and fun as people realised they could bring out their prejudices and enjoy, challenge and update them.
Evaluation:
We looked at the language people used to describe issues of diversity before the two session training, in between sessions and after the training had finished. Our focus was on whether people were using categories such as race, sexual orientation, gender etc or whether they were referring to themselves, their teams and others around them.
Questionnaire content analysis at time 1 (before)
· 65% mentioned or referred to the title of groups of people as indicators of diversity and their own diversity awareness. Within this, most respondents thought of race as the meaning of diversity and the reason for diversity training
Questionnaire content analysis at time 2 (in between)
· 63% of people referred to groups when discussing diversity, however there was a big shift in the titles of these groups, with only 13% referring to specific categories and most respondents citing ‘others’, and groups of ‘individuals’.
Questionnaire content analysis at time 3 (after)
· The mentioning of traditional categories was reduced to just 10% and most people were able to talk about diversity and how it impacted on those in their immediate vicinity and everyday working life.
Combined with anecdotal stories from the interviews we conducted, we interpret this as a shift throughout the organisation from people thinking about diversity as
Time 1) An issue that is external to them and on a large group level; to
Time 2) A personal issue that affects them and their team; to
Time 3) A personal issue that they can do something about by communicating differently with people around them
What they said:
“This is the first diversity course where I haven’t walked away feeling discriminated against”
“This course made me accept that I personally do discriminate, to try to ask “why I do” in future, before I do it, in order to try and prevent it”
“there’s a girl in my team who I don’t get on with. I’ve just realised that I don’t know anything about her – how many kids she has, how she likes her tea. I’m going to ask her if she wants a cup of tea next time I see her”
The management of a London Borough Primary Care Trust identified that they wanted to deliver an organisation wide diversity awareness programme that improved working conditions for all and the service they provided to the public.
Training Attention, in partnership with Patrick Weekes Associates designed a programme to facilitate individuals to:
· Acknowledged Prejudice
· Ask Questions
· Challenge Discrimination
We delivered 2 ½ day session to all members of the organisation, including board members, in groups of 15. Each group was a diagonal slice with people learning about what was important to different areas of the trust.
The sessions included:
Metaphor model for Working @ your Best
Modelling stereotyping, prejudice and discrimination
What’s a prejudice you used to have but lost?
What’s a question you always wanted to ask but didn’t want to offend anyone?
We were very lucky within this contract that our rules of; diagonal slicing and ensuring that all levels of a system are involved in the change, had already been agreed by this organisation before they booked us.
The sessions were enjoyable, challenging and often very emotional and fun as people realised they could bring out their prejudices and enjoy, challenge and update them.
Evaluation:
We looked at the language people used to describe issues of diversity before the two session training, in between sessions and after the training had finished. Our focus was on whether people were using categories such as race, sexual orientation, gender etc or whether they were referring to themselves, their teams and others around them.
Questionnaire content analysis at time 1 (before)
· 65% mentioned or referred to the title of groups of people as indicators of diversity and their own diversity awareness. Within this, most respondents thought of race as the meaning of diversity and the reason for diversity training
Questionnaire content analysis at time 2 (in between)
· 63% of people referred to groups when discussing diversity, however there was a big shift in the titles of these groups, with only 13% referring to specific categories and most respondents citing ‘others’, and groups of ‘individuals’.
Questionnaire content analysis at time 3 (after)
· The mentioning of traditional categories was reduced to just 10% and most people were able to talk about diversity and how it impacted on those in their immediate vicinity and everyday working life.
Combined with anecdotal stories from the interviews we conducted, we interpret this as a shift throughout the organisation from people thinking about diversity as
Time 1) An issue that is external to them and on a large group level; to
Time 2) A personal issue that affects them and their team; to
Time 3) A personal issue that they can do something about by communicating differently with people around them
What they said:
“This is the first diversity course where I haven’t walked away feeling discriminated against”
“This course made me accept that I personally do discriminate, to try to ask “why I do” in future, before I do it, in order to try and prevent it”
“there’s a girl in my team who I don’t get on with. I’ve just realised that I don’t know anything about her – how many kids she has, how she likes her tea. I’m going to ask her if she wants a cup of tea next time I see her”