Notes from our first Organisational Membership forum
We recently launched Organisational Membership to the Anti-Stigma Network.
There are some actions to address stigma that are best taken collectively by organisations. This may be action internal to the organisation to support and educate staff and volunteers, or through organisations coming together to campaign for change.
We aim to learn from what organisations are doing already and share to raise our collective awareness of what’s possible and what works. Therefore, since our last newsletter we held our first forum for Organisations to explore how we can best add value.
The forum saw 8 organisations come together to share their practice as we explored questions such as how we ensure we create a non-judgemental culture for employee and clients.
Discussion points included:
The disparity between support for employees affected by substance use compared mental health, and other health issues
A recent CIPD report (link https://www.cipd.org/uk/knowledge/reports/drug-alcohol-misuse-work-report/) showed that whilst around three-quarters of UK organisations have a specific drugs and/or alcohol policy, few train line managers about their drug and alcohol policies and procedures (12% provide one-off training for line managers and 25% provide regular refresher training). Just three in ten employers provide guidelines for managers on how to deal with disclosure and how to signpost to support.
How best to practically support employees seeking support for their substance use
We consider what best practice looks like in reality and whether would it help to create a standard, or a menu of options or case studies, that organisations should consider so that they can be as inclusive and responsive as possible. Different approaches work for different organisations but by investing time in working out what works for your employees needs we can retain talented people in our organisations.
The importance of Allyship - taking action to help marginalised groups in the workplace
A number of members use structured ‘communities of experience’ so that people with lived experience are genuinely and meaningfully influencing organisational policy decisions. The aim is to make better policy and great places to work for everyone, dismantling the barriers to success within workplaces.
Creating a stigma-free culture within organisations
We considered the key places and spaces within organisation’s structures where anti-stigma messages can be conveyed, looking at an organisation’s mission, values, strategy and culture. Importantly how do we check and monitor that we have the culture we aspire to? One that enables our people and our strategies.
What are the barriers to acting in-line with our aspirations?
Can we act as individuals, and teams, within organisations as we wish to? The pressure of workload, caseload, time and resources pressures can mean that we’re driven to act in a way that conflicts with our aims. What can we do to recognise these pressures and align our ambitions and our actions?
With a strong appetite from members to look at some of these issues in more detail, look out for more Anti-Stigma Network forums and events coming soon.
