Equality and Diversity Strategy
The Children’s Services Equality and Diversity Action Plan contributes to the East Sussex County Council Equality Strategy to meet the Public Sector Equality Duty. It provides a framework to develop excellent equality, diversity and inclusion practice.
The action plan aims to support positive outcomes for:
- the children and families we work with
- our staff
This covers people with the following "relevant protected characteristics":
- age
- disability
- gender reassignment
- marriage and civil partnership
- pregnancy and maternity
- race
- religion or belief
- sex
- sexual orientation
In East Sussex, we also include the following categories:
- carers
- Armed Forces
- people with care experience (e.g having been a Looked After Child)
- rurality
Children’s Services are working on priority actions. These relate to the four domains of the East Sussex County Council equality action plan.
A) Leadership on equality and demonstrating commitment
- Continue to deliver equality learning and development offer for elected Members
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Involve young people in decision making in the interview process for senior staff
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Ensure that we take action to prevent violence, harassment and discrimination in the workplace, and respond effectively if it is reported.
B) Using data and engagement effectively to make improvements
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Include equality information in new data dashboards across Children’s Services as standard.
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Continue to collect and review attendance and exclusion data from schools together with data on ethnicity, sex, disability and eligibility for Free School Meals.
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Facilitate youth voice groups including:
o Youth Cabinet
o SEND Young Ambassadors
o Children in Care Council
o Leaving Care Council
o Youth Vocals (Social Care)
o Youth voice groups in Youth Hubs
C) Quality services taking into account diverse needs of local people
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Ensure Equality Impact Assessments inform service planning and delivery.
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Support schools in meeting their Public Sector Equality Duty e.g., facilitating a Schools’ and Colleges’ Race Equality Network and providing guidance on equality duty.
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Work together with our key partners to improve outcomes for vulnerable and marginalised groups, including:
o People with care experience e.g., being a Looked After Child
o People from Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities.
o Disabled children and those with special educational needs and disability
D) Diverse workforce with equality confidence, knowledge and skills
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Deliver training for staff on a range of equality matters, including "Talking About Equality" training.
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Support the workforce to understand best practice for the participation of SEND young people.