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Yes Futures is fully supportive of the Black Lives Matter movement and our entire team are committed to making the future fairer for all.
Many of the young people we work with are from communities facing considerable challenges and have not received the same level of privilege as others. Yes Futures was built on a philosophy of equality for every young person.
We strongly believe that black lives add significant and unique value to our world. So many of the black individuals (both young people and adults) that we work with are bright, creative, talented, inspirational humans whose achievements deserve to be celebrated.
As an education charity, we value our role in ending systemic racism and prejudice in all its forms. In early June we sent out a series of resources about race, diversity and inclusion to all the primary and secondary schools on our mailing list. We are now looking carefully at what we can do to facilitate longer-term change, including carefully reviewing our own practises.
The Yes Futures Team and Trustee Board are currently working to educate ourselves, and carefully consider what actions we can take.
We recognise that there is a lot of work to do, and it's vital that the action we take is sustained and meaningful. We are committed to improving and plan to begin with:
A review of our curriculum to ensure that as well as promoting tolerance and diversity, that it is also suitable for, and accessible by, black young people.
A review of our Coaching role in order to continue to engage more adults of a variety of ethnicities to become Yes Futures Coaches, and role models to our young people.
A review of our internal recruitment processes and staff support and training. We know that the charity sector as a whole is generally dominated by white females. We are already working hard to reduce gender bias in our organisation and now look to work with other charities to further develop our recruitment processes to encourage diversity in all forms, both within Yes Futures and across the sector. Furthermore, we will be ensuring we have regular training for all staff on diversity and inclusion.
An ongoing conversation with our partners, including ensuring commitment from our ‘World of Work’ partners to provide diverse role models for our young people.
A review of our communications, external resources and marketing materials to ensure that they truly represent and cater for the diversity of our audience.
In undertaking this work, we plan to engage with the black young people with whom we work, as well as other experts.
We recognise the complexity of the challenge and believe that, as well as racism, there are many other critical aspects that we must address for true equality. This includes discrimination on the grounds of gender, age, sexuality, appearance, and those who are differently abled, as well as many other factors. We also recognise that in reviewing these things we must also acknowledge their intersectionality for many individuals.
Yes Futures is committed to improving equality so that all young people can access the successful futures they deserve.