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Equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI)

We aspire to be an organisation which celebrates diversity, delivers equality and allows everyone to access our services and ensures fairness to all of our employees.

Our Commitment to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion  

At The Forward Trust, equality, equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) are central to our core vision that anyone – however marginalised and whatever their history or circumstances – gets the opportunity and support to live a positive life that fulfils their potential and inspires others to follow the same path.  

Our work is fundamentally driven by the need for social justice, empowering people from all backgrounds and addressing and challenging discrimination and structural inequalities in the process. We are committed to building a truly inclusive organisation where everyone belongs and is valued and whose diversity reflects the communities we serve, enabling us to deliver the best possible services to all who engage with us.  

Equality, equity, diversity and inclusion are essential priorities for us and we are working hard to ensure that these are maintained and embedded within all aspects of Forward’s work. 

A message from our CEO

“Like any large organisation, Forward Trust has to examine its history, structures and service delivery to ensure that we are living up to our values and principles around equality, equity, diversity and inclusion. We want our workplaces to be welcoming and inclusive, so that all our staff and volunteers feel valued and supported. And we want our services to be accessible to everyone who could benefit from them, and of equal value and relevance to the diverse backgrounds and experiences of our clients. These challenges are significant and require constant review – from our leadership and across our teams.’ Mike Trace, CEO, The Forward Trust

EDI strategy

In April 2024 we published our first 3-year Equality, Diversity and Inclusion strategy which renews and strengthens our focus on EDI both as an employer and a service provider. Our EDI strategy consists of three key strategic goals: 

  1. Develop and embed a culture of inclusion throughout the organization.
  2. Maximize opportunities to attract, develop, support and retain diverse talent. 
  3. Ensure that our services are accessible, welcoming and inclusive to all who need them 

These objectives inform all of our work – from our recruitment and policy review to our communications and service delivery. While we have developed our EDI strategy from an organisation-wide perspective and ensured senior oversight and ownership to deliver a consistent and thorough approach, we will also continue to facilitate and encourage local ‘bottom-up’ initiatives to promote EDI.  

Read Forward’s EDI Strategy 2024-2027 to find out more.  

Read Forward’s EDI Strategy 2024-2027

Our Key Achievements to Date Include:

  • Establishing five staff-led Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) across Forward which help to champion EDI across everything that we do. Our ERGs provide a supportive peer-led network to colleagues to discuss different lived experiences, provide insight into unseen barriers and support Forward to devise practical, creative and workable solutions to enable everyone to thrive and be their authentic selves (further explanations of our ERGs are further down this page).
  1. Embrace (Disability, Neurodiversity, and Mental Health)  
  2. RACE Forward (Race and Ethnicity)  
  3. Proud (LGBTQ+)  
  4. ForWomen (Women)  
  5. Lived Experience of the Criminal Justice System Training 
  • Introducing mandatory EDI training for all new starters around basic EDI principles.  
  • We have dedicated HR support to recruit a diverse workforce with lived experience of different vulnerabilities, ensuring clients are supported by people with whom they can identify.  
  • Introducing a dedicated service geared towards the LGBTQ+ community and developing specialist training for frontline staff working with LGBTQ+ clients  
  • Creating the role of Head of EDI to provide strategic leadership and create impact across the organisation, and to continue to centre EDI at the heart of everything we do. Our trustees have also participated in a programme of ‘Inclusive Leadership’ training, and we have identified two trustees to be our EDI leads to ensure accountability at the highest level of the organisation.  
  • Helping our staff and clients to celebrate Pride, Black History Month, International Women’s Day, World Mental Health Day and Mental Health Awareness Week and other important diversity celebrations and awareness-raising events throughout the year.  
  • Hosting regular online EDI or wellbeing sessions open to all staff to learn from each other’s experiences and perspectives  
  • Engaging strategic external partners to directly support delivery and advise on inclusivity, e.g. Do-It profiler, experts on neurodiversity. 
  • Providing new client-facing material translated into many different languages to ensure we can provide support to clients who don’t speak English. 

Our Priorities for 2024:

  • Establish an EDI Board to provide oversight and support the implementation of the EDI strategy. This will be made up of a diverse group of senior staff and subject experts across the organisation. We will also ensure that insights from our employee resource groups and service users/those with lived experience are shared with this group.  
  • Pilot equality impact assessments on key policies/services to support the embedding of EDI considerations in our service delivery and a refreshed approach to policy review  
  • Support increased engagement with our Employee Resource Groups and ensure they have the resources and input on strategic decisions that they need to contribute to the EDI workplan  
  • Improve and expand our EDI learning provision, with the development of bespoke EDI learner journeys for targeted groups of staff and more accessible and bitesize EDI content on our LMS and Sharepoint pages  
  • Review our pathways for reporting concerns, making sure that we provide formal and informal routes, and review options to do so anonymously. An important part of this is about increasing transparency and building trust in our complaints handling process 
  • Continue to celebrate key awareness dates and offer EDI webinars to encourage staff to come together and learn from each other’s perspectives and experiences  
  • Develop our approach for communicating EDI updates, progress and achievements both internally and externally  
  • Review existing client equality monitoring data to identify underserved groups in our services and develop a cross-organisational approach to improve how we monitor and respond to inequalities in access, experience and outcomes of our services  
  • Review staff equality monitoring data to produce a diversity baseline report and emergent action plan to address areas of underrepresentation in our recruitment  

Our ERG’s

Embrace (disability, neurodiversity and mental health)

Embrace provide a voice for employees who are disabled, neurodivergent or and/or  experience differences in terms of their mental health. We encourage colleagues to understand the needs of disabled people within the organisation.

RACE Forward (race and ethnicity)

Race Forward provide a safe space for staff of different racial and cultural  backgrounds to voice concerns, champion achievements and share lived experience of Black and Minority Ethnic people within the organisation. 

Proud (LGBTQ+)

Proud is a supportive space for staff to discuss issues facing the LGBTQ+ community at Forward, and share resources and knowledge with the wider organisation. Staff do not need to identify as part of the LGBTQ+ community to join this group. 

ForWomen (Women)

For Women aim to provide a voice for anyone at Forward who identifies as a woman. We work to encourage colleagues to understand the needs of women within our workforce and our service user community.

Lived Experience of the Criminal Justice System (CJS)

Lived Experience in Action is a safe space for staff with experience of the Criminal Justice System (CJS) to voice concerns, champion achievements and shared their lived experienced with others within the organisation. The members should ideally consist of those with their own lived experience of the CJS or those who work and/or have family members with such experience. 

Dedicated Support for LGBTQ+ Clients

To ensure that every Forward service is a safe space for everyone, we have an LGBTQ+ add-on section to the current Stepping Stones programme.

We have a dedicated service geared towards the LGBTQ+ community, including a weekly Zoom meeting where everyone within the community is welcome and will find an inclusive, non-judgemental space.

All client-facing staff are trained around LGBTQ+ communities and issues, to be able to provide a supportive environment for you to be yourself, find yourself and accept yourself.

We can direct you towards other LGBTQ+ organisations, sexual health clinics and other forms of support. We can also provide face-to-face sessions, over the phone or via Zoom/Teams.

For more information, please email: Darren.Lacey@forwardtrust.org.uk

‘I am delighted to be supporting Forward on its EDI journey. As an organization we are committed to developing a culture of inclusion, supporting diverse talent and ensuring that our services are accessible to all who need them. It’s important that we enable everyone to understand what EDI means to the Forward Trust, their teams and their individual roles. We want everyone at Forward to take personal responsibility for their learning, be equipped to recognize and challenge discriminatory behaviours and embed inclusive practices in all aspects of their work.’

Keti Anjroin, Head of EDI