After a the usual Covid delay for a few months break while I and the university move training online, I’m continuing to run Allies workshops for the University as part of my long-term consultancy partnership which has covered allies, employability mentoring and the curriculum.
The workshop last week was attended by 45 staff – a mixture of academics and mostly professional services staff. Extremely encouraging given how busy people are and especially if they are home-schooling too. The key elements were:
- Explaining why coming out at work is still a challenge for many employees, especially with varied cultural and international backgrounds
- Back ground to the changes in the law
- Explaining terminology
- Explaining the Ally ‘job description’
- Break -out room discussions.
Feedback from participants were as follows:
- Great to have those ‘is it just me, or…’ discussions in a safe space
- Building confidence around language, terminology, and that it’s OK to ask
- Not worry too much about getting it wrong if you’re clearly asking/doing with the best of intentions.
Looking forward to running the ‘advanced’ course for existing Allies on ‘what exactly can I DO as an ally?’.