 So I think, okay, we will start. Baradar, everybody, really good to see so many of you here today. Welcome to the second of our monthly Anti-Racist Wales Action Plan webinar, Evolving Together, The Journey Towards an Anti-Racist Wales by 2030, because that is the overarching aim of everything we do. I'm Rajavi Glassbrook, I'm a member of the implementation team. Today's focus is education, extremely close to my heart. I am a teacher. And once a teacher, always a teacher. And as you said, if I don't know if you heard the opening of this conversation, we know that in order to make a change, education is the driver. It can't be stated enough, so it's so good to see so many teachers here today. Just some housekeeping. We encourage you to actively participate by using the Q&A tab. The chat is off for this, but please post your questions throughout as you go. You can also ask questions anonymously, so you don't have to have your name. We'll address your questions. After all, the speakers have had a chance to speak. It is quite a packed schedule, so please keep notes. But again, if anything occurs to you during or after the session, please get in touch and we will aim to respond. If we can't go through all the questions, we will provide a written feedback in response following this webinar. So please don't be offended at all if we don't get around to your question. Recording and transcription are on, so I hope everybody's all right with that. And to ensure the session runs smoothly, we've muted everybody's microphones. I hope that's okay too. We'll get started without further ado with our first speaker. We are very, very lucky to have the speakers we've got here today, because they're all people who've been very actively involved in the formation of this plan. So our first speaker is Professor Emmanuel Augbonne. Professor Augbonne is the Professor in Management and Organization at Cardiff Business School in Cardiff University. He is also the co-chair of our External Accountability Group. And Professor Augbonne has been part of this journey that has been quite a journey for in reaching the Anti-Racist Wales Action Plan from the very beginning. So thoroughly invested in the work at every stage of the way. Professor Augbonne will be discussing leading and anti-racist culture change in Welsh higher education institutions. He has extremely vast and extensive knowledge in this area, so I hope you find it extremely useful. Over to you, Professor. I think we lost him. We lost Professor Augbonne. It was with us. Maybe something has happened. In which case, maybe we can swap the agenda around Professor Williams. Would you be willing to go first? Yes, sure. Yes, sorry to have to put you on the spot. Oh, no, Professor Augbonne, you're there. You're on mute. Yeah, can you see me? Yes, excellent. Thank you. Perfect. Okay. So again, Barry there, and thank you for joining us today. My objective this morning is to share my reflections on what leaders of higher education institutions can do to change the cultures of their organizations so that they can become anti-racist organizations in line with the Anti-racist Wales Action Plan. Now, the Welsh Government has gone for an anti-racist plan, an action plan, because previous plans have not led to meaningful improvements in the lives of people from racial and ethnic minority backgrounds. We've already tried integration. We've tried multiculturalism. We've tried the quality of opportunities. We've tried the quality diversity and inclusion. And they've all failed to shift the dial on inequality and inequity, really. If you take the example of equality, diversity, and inclusion as practiced in many universities, and I work in one, so I should know, if you take that as an example, you will find that race has been particularly neglected. Now, don't take my word for it. It is in the report that the University of UK published in 2021 that universities in the UK have ignored race or at least tackling racial inequalities in favour of other inequalities. So that is a problem that we're trying to deal with under the Anti-racist Wales Action Plan. And what I'm going to do is to talk through what I believe universities should be doing and high education institutions should be doing to try to redress this balance. And my view is that the first thing that institutions should do is to acknowledge that there is a problem of institutional racism. Again, don't take my word for it. The Qualities and Human Rights Commission a few years ago found that universities in the UK are institutionally racist. Where then they continue to be now. Now, not many universities have actually or institutions of higher learning have actually acknowledged this finding. Even when their representative, the UK representative on the qualities, Professor Richardson, urged his fellow vice chancellor to acknowledge institutional racism. Very few institutions have so acknowledged. So if you don't acknowledge that there is a problem, there is very little likelihood that you want to solve it. And by the way, the denial of racism is just as bad as racism itself. Because that is what perpetuates racism. It fits into the narrative that if there is a problem, it isn't because of racism. It is because of the inadequacies of minority ethnic communities as opposed to the systems, the policies that are steeped against them in ways that they're unable to use their individual agencies to better themselves. So universities and higher education institutions should begin by acknowledging that there is a problem of institutional racism. And once you do that, the next thing to do will be to undertake an equality audit through the realms of racism or race, if you like. By trying to understand where your policies, your systems, your practices may be contributing to the racialized outcomes that we are seeing in higher education institutions. Why do I say that? All institutions of higher learning in Wales and in the UK would say that they are not racist. But all the outcomes we get continue to be racist or at least racialized in the sense of whether you look at the gaps in awards, the people enter universities at roughly the same levels and emerge at vastly different levels that will be dictated by their racial backgrounds or whether you look at representation in terms of the numbers of people that are employed and their ethnicities and racial backgrounds. And you look at all sorts of areas, whether it is in promotions, the levels at which people are employed, and you see that outcomes are racialized. So what you want to do is to acknowledge the existence of that racism and begin to see, to look for the reasons why that may be occurring. If we take an example of human resource processes and look at that and see what could be happening there. If we do a root and branch review of our HR processes, including looking at how decisions on HR issues are made in these institutions. What we mustn't do is to, we mustn't accept human resource people making decisions on the basis of vague rationales. And that's what we continue to see. Why was this person not promoted? Oh, because they have a negative attitude. Oh, because they don't cooperate. You know, these are vague rationales and these are where you open the room for racism. Because you couldn't possibly define what we mean by somebody having a negative attitude, by somebody not cooperating. These are all vague rationales. We want to encourage people to have objective rationales when they make decisions. We mustn't use things like, oh, this person shows promise. So I'm going to promote them to a senior literature or whatever, or professorship or whatever the case may be. When in actual fact, promise is ephemeral. You know, anybody can show promise, depending on whether you like them as a person and whether you want to help them to advance their careers. No, these are areas where we can open the roots to racism. This is why we have outcomes that are racialized, but nobody ever admits to being racist. So we want to be able to look at the systems and processes. You know, we also want to be able to generate data. You couldn't possibly do this, what we're planning to do without data. Data is key here. We'll have to be able to generate that. Unfortunately, data is something that many institutions of higher learning don't have either because people are no longer willing to give their data to a meaningless exercise. Every time people ask you to fill in your identity, your racial identity, nothing ever gets done with it. In fact, people from minority ethnic communities sometimes think that they use that data to target them so they no longer are willing to share it. So universities and higher education institutions must do more to try and encourage people to provide this data. And this data must be intersectional. So that we can begin to see the variety of factors that may be at play, depending on the variety of identities that a single individual may hold. And of course, to understand that ethnic minority people are not homogeneous, they are heterogeneous. There are all sorts of differences which can emerge and data would help us to unravel those differences and begin to understand how we deal with things. A key factor for me to identify or to highlight in this talk is the importance in trying to draw a distinction between equality and equity. What we've done for generations is to rely on equality. But what we have done is not to focus on equity or to think about equity. Equity is important because otherwise without equity, equality becomes meaningless almost. It's almost like running a hundred meters race with the same boat in his head there. And then whatever you do, you're going to lose that race because this person has inbuilt advantages that you don't have. So you've got to think about how you generate equity in academic institutions or higher education institutions. There are some things that the law allows us to do. There are others the law doesn't allow us to do. So for example, unlike in the United States and say South Africa where they use positive discrimination to achieve equity in the UK, we're not allowed to use positive discrimination but we are allowed to use positive action. So there is no reason we shouldn't encourage managers and vice chancellors and institutional leaders to use positive action. But for them to use positive action, they need to understand what that means. So we need to be able to train them to understand what positive action means. The idea that you can use tie breaks to be able to make recruitment decision where a particular group of people may be underrepresented. This is something we need to train managers to understand. The number of people I have spoken to who've confused positive action with positive discrimination, they meant. So it's very important that we try to think in that sense as well. But also we could begin to think about other ways of doing achieving equity. For example, why don't we include achieving an anti-resist organization in the KPI, the key performance indicators of university vice chancellors and other leaders in universities? Now, why don't we include this in the PDR, the performance development reviews of every manager and say, what have you done to contribute to this objective? If something is important to us, we normally try to do it. So if this is important as it now is in Wales, we should do everything to try to achieve it. So these are the things that we can begin to do. So training is a very important element. Why don't we encourage or indeed insist that everybody participates in an anti-racism training of some sort? In many institutions, they are trying that now, but many colleagues are, for whatever reason, choosing not to attend that training, either because the university hasn't stressed the level of importance that they are attributing to this or because colleagues are struggling to catch up with that aspect of it. Either way, this is important. And my final point really is that we need to understand, especially university leaders, need to understand that it is very difficult to achieve a health and minds change in relation to intractable identity issues, such as gender, such as race. We know that in universities from race, from gender, sorry, for many years, gender was again neglected in universities and higher education institutions until a certain Athena Swann came into the scene in the 2000s. And from then, universities have begun to try harder to try to do something about gender. It doesn't mean they've achieved parity in any way, shape or form, but they are doing a lot more on gender today than they did before Athena Swann. And that's because Athena Swann had a punitive element. It was linked to the finances of universities. So we should expect a race equality charter that is linked to the finances of universities to encourage the same type of change. Now that change isn't based on hearts and minds. We hope you would, over a longer period of time, become had some minds. But the fact that it is being linked to income means that we are working on the basis like Athena Swann that universities and institutions of higher education will only take something seriously when it hits the bottom line. So this is going to hit the bottom line and as such is going to encourage more institutions to do that. But we would hope that institutions will do it because it is the right thing to do. And if we do it because it's the right thing to do, over time, everybody will begin to develop this learned behaviour towards being anti-racist. Anti-racism is the way to go for any developed institutions and organisations and societies. And we would hope that you will be able to join us in this journey. Thank you very much for listening. Thank you so much, Professor O'Connor, for a really powerful and candid and clear summation of what is a deeply rooted systemic issue with our institutions. And it's exactly, as you say, Professor, that acknowledgement and understanding that's the start of the change and positive action and change needs action. And that is not positive discrimination by any means. It's something a lot more powerful and positive and using the levers that institutions have to make that change. So thank you very much for that. Following on really well from that, we're very lucky to have Professor Charlotte Williams with us today. Professor Charlotte Williams, OBE, Professor Emeritus of Bangor University, Non-Executive Director of Estin. Professor Williams is also an advisory board member for the Black Leadership Group UK and a key part of our External Accountability Group like Professor O'Connor. Professor Charlotte Williams chaired the working group for the report that we all now know is the Kenevin Report. It is a report to basically make us the first nation in UK that has made the teaching of Black history mandatory. It was beyond a privilege for me to work on that working group because the work that has come from it is absolutely transformative or has the potential to be for our schools. And it really reflects that it's not Black history, it's history and so it's all our history is the way we should be looking at it. So I'll introduce that's enough of an introduction, I suppose, because I could be here all day, really, but if anyone hasn't looked at that Kenevin Report yet, please do. It's an extremely powerful piece of work. Thank you Professor Williams. Yolk and Balian Radhvi and Baladar Paab. We've got 10 minutes to tell you quite a big story here, but I'm delighted to do so. Our anti-racist Wales action plan, and I say our because as a nation we are committing to this plan, commits us to six main areas in respect of schools. The curriculum work that Radhvi outlined there to having a more representative workforce, if you have a look at the plan, there is a commitment in terms of greater representation of Black, Asian and minority ethnic people in the workforce. The initial teacher education, encouraging more teachers to train those from Black and minority backgrounds to train and be recruited into the Welsh workforce. There are commitments in terms of Gypsy Roma travellers updating the guidance to schools. There are commitments in terms of tackling racism in schools and the reporting of racism and the general well-being of young people in schools. And there are commitments in terms of the Welsh language, encouraging more people, for example, from minority backgrounds into Welsh medium education. And what I can report is a very positive picture at the moment in terms of infrastructure development to ensure that we are tracking well against these objectives. So, for example, we have a whole suite of professional learning that is being accessed through DARPA, the Diversity and Anti-Racist Professional Learning Virtual Campus. We have a huge amount of resource development going on, not only given the commitment of the government in resource development, but I am frequently being asked to review resources that are being produced by a plethora of organisations to support the curriculum, BBC Bitesize being one example. There's guidance for governors. There's a general sense of awareness across all sectors of the workforce that this work is underway, that feeling of it being underway. Qualifications Wales, WJEC are looking at assessment tools in this respect and there's some wonderful projects going on in schools, one of which I wanted to mention from Presley School where the children have produced their own version of the Anti-Racist Action Plan, their own interpretation, the pupils and the teachers have worked together in a Kenevin project to produce this document. So there's lots of good practice being developed and being shared. My reflection on things that are a little bit slower on the mark are that some areas of Wales are yet to, schools and professionals and practitioners are yet to deeply engage with this initiative. And my big message today is to urge you to have a look at what is available on the DARPL virtual campus website to equip yourself as practitioners and people in the education workforce to take this forward. The government can lay out an infrastructure of support but actually until people start engaging with it deeply, thinking about it, having dialogue, looking at what's available, drawing on these resources, we're not going to move forward in a sustainable way. I wanted to say something about the models in use as well in the curriculum. What we're not looking for is this kind of additive approach where maybe in Black History Month there's some kinds of celebratory activity going on or it's a kind of add-on to a lesson plan that where attention to a contribution from an ethnic minority individual is celebrated. What we actually want is a much more transformative approach to integrating these perspectives in every area of learning and experience. And as Rajvi was just saying, our brief from our First Minister is that Black History is Welsh History and Welsh History is Black History. So we want an embedded and transformative approach. I think it's important to say however that the curriculum alone will not achieve on the plan. What we need also to see is a whole school approach where the culture of the school, just as Professor O'Connor has described in relation to higher education, will need to be a learning organisation, will need to think about how it presents itself, its image, its culture, the feel, the structure of feeling of the school will be important. And then another reflection is how will we know we're getting there? What will be some of those indicators or measures of success? And the plan gives us a steer. It talks about children and young people talking about lessons being more relevant, the content of their learning feeling more relevant to them and their position. But it's not only about those children and young people from minority backgrounds. It's clear that the brief is for all pupils, all teachers, all schools right across Wales to be involved and engaged in this initiative because one of the four purposes of the curriculum is that we will enable ethical and informed citizens of Wales and the world, our young people to be ethical and informed citizens of Wales and the world. My final few points are about what's going to make a difference as we go forward. We've seen a great push in relation to what's happening in schools, but what's going to make the difference. And in the Kinevin report, we talked about leavers, leaders and learners and just a synopsis of that is thinking about what kinds of key leavers are going to drive forward with this agenda. And these are things I think like the WJEC's commitment to looking at assessment tools I think will be very important in driving changes in the curriculum. There'll be things like Estyn's review, which is a review, an initial review is scheduled for 2024 and a full thematic review is scheduled for five years from the report. So we're looking at 2026 for that. I think that kind of review will be important. Estyn's new inspecting the future framework, HMI's are being geared up to ask those questions of schools as they do their review of schools. So those kinds of leavers are going to be important. But the real learning comes from schools taking on a dialogic, what we call a dialogic commitment to their own internal review as a continuous process of evaluation. How are we doing? Let's put it on our agenda. Let's discuss, let's talk about what kinds of initiatives, proactive initiatives, because anti-racism is about being proactive, not just about being non-discriminatory to make the change. And how can we share? Peer-to-peer learning is going to be so important. Professor Obona talked about learned behavior. When we get schools that are demonstrating excellence in this way, and they share with other schools through forums, regional forums of peer-to-peer learning, don't be left behind. I think it's going to be very, very significant. So another point will be those schools that are able to link this initiative into other things that they're doing, like the healthy schools scheme, talking about well-being of people, seeing racism in schools as fundamentally damaging to the well-being of children and young people from minority backgrounds. So using that opportunity to link what you're doing in terms of wider policy and practice with embedding these perspectives and this lens, let's call it the race lens, on what you're doing. I think I want to talk a little bit about statutory equality plans, making those active documents. We can pick that up later. My conclusion is that if we're looking to the anti-racist school, the culture of the school, its curriculum, its profile, its portrait into the future, don't underestimate the amount of change that's going to be needed. We are in for the long haul, but start that journey. Nothing's going to happen without you the implementers taking this initiative forward. Diolch yn fawr. Diolch yn fawr Diolch yn fawr, Professor Williams, for that, just so much to take away from that. And they say if it's the start of a very, very important journey, and it's more than the curriculum, it's the culture, as Professor Williams says. So a huge thank you for that. We'll go over now to a slightly different perspective. So we've heard from our two professors. We'll now hear from our policy colleagues, from the Welsh Government, who are making a lot of this change happen and driving it forward. We've got three members from our team. We have Envis Dixie, who leads on schools and education in schools. Mary and Jeb, who leads on further education and Craig Greenland on higher education. So I'll hand it over to them. They will discuss the Government's efforts in relation to the progress so far with the Anti-Racist Wales Action Plan, because contained within the Anti-Racist Wales Action Plan are a series of goals and actions. And there are quite a lot, some short-term, some long-term, but there's a really intensive amount of work there. And I'd like to welcome them to provide their insights. Thank you very much, team. Thanks, Rajvi Diolch. I think I'll go first. So, hi everyone. I'm Envis. I head up the Children and Young People's Rights and Education Branch. And it was like music to my ears, really, to hear Professor Oguanas talk about equality and equity. My division is called the Equity and Education Division, and that's definitely where our starting point when we talk about anti-racism. So I'll just speak first about the work that we've been doing and will be doing in relation to schools, and then hand over to my colleagues. So as Professor William set out there, in the last 12 to 18 months, we've really been focused on two primary goals, which is to increase the recruitment of teachers from ethnic minority communities and also embed anti-racist practices within the education sector, or at least start embedding anti-racism. So we've seen some significant accomplishments as Professor Williams has set out, notably the establishment of an initial teacher education recruitment plan and a financial incentive for students and new teachers from different ethnic minority communities, the development of new anti-racist professional learning resources, the real reform and change that we're seeing in the new curriculum at the moment, which opens lots of new opportunities for schools to really think creatively about how we teach the different histories and experiences of all our different communities and also really embedding that diversity and human rights angle into, those two things are real cross-cutting themes within the new curriculum now, and that's to be welcomed too. So I'll just start really briefly with DARPA, which is the Diversity and Anti-racist Professional Learning Project. That's our one-stop shop really for practitioners and senior leaders to access very high quality and free professional learning and resources to embed anti-racism, the specific anti-racism resources and learning there for governors and for leaders. So if you haven't accessed them already, please do. We've got, at the moment, there's almost 25,000 leaders and educators in Wales that have engaged with the events, consultations, resources within DARPA, and that offer now is being extended to the early years, child care and play sectors and the further education sector too. Over the next year, I think DARPA now will look to extend their virtual campus, which is, as I said, that one-stop shop, and there's going to be a much, you know, a focus on wider dissemination of that work. Initial teacher education, we really recognise the importance of representation within the education system. You know, a key real memory for me, I guess, of being in a forum, in a meeting with lots of teachers and ex-teachers and people from different communities. When we asked the question about why there was such a small number of teachers from ethnic minority communities within our education system, I think it's about 1.6% when about, it's about 13, 14% now of our children and young people from different communities. So it's really not representative of our education system. You know, the answer was, well, why would I want to go into education when that's where I experience racism for the first time? It's not, it's not an environment that I want to be in ever again. And that really spoke volumes because that really brings home the importance of creating an education system which is truly anti-racist because that will set in stone really the future for lots of our children and young people. So recruitment and retention are, you know, two real very important things for us. And, you know, as I said, we've got a financial incentive and a new recruitment plan. And for the 2022, 23 academic year, we supported around 45 student teachers in that incentive scheme. And further detail on that cohort will be available in due course. We do recognize though there's still a lot more to do. We know that there are still incidents of racism happening in our schools and not just among children and young people in their peers, but among teachers and practitioners too. And that really speaks to what Professor Williams just said in terms of the importance of leadership, the importance of culture within a school and that real sense of nurture, but not, you know, not just for children and young people but for teachers as well. They need to feel included and welcomed and celebrated within their workplace. And so over the next few months, we will be publishing our new guidance to support Gypsy Roma and Traveller children and young people in schools. That will be published hopefully in November. We'll also be updating our statutory anti-bullying guidance to strengthen the guidance for schools to tackle prejudice-related bullying. And the Children's Commissioner for Wales is about to bring out a report, we think next month, on experiences of racism in secondary schools after lots of engagement with young people themselves. So that will be a key part of, a key piece of work which will inform that guidance. And we're also going to continue to work on strengthening the reporting and monitoring of incidents of racist bullying and harassment in schools. And that's a real long-term piece of work. I'm going to hand over now to Marianne, thank you. Thanks, Envisette. I think like every speaker here today, I could probably fill up the whole hour really easily on my own. So I'm going to try to do what doesn't come naturally to me and be really concise. I'm going to talk very briefly about what we do in the further education sector, which is my area of responsibility in the anti-racist-wales action plan. I'm going to try and focus on just two main things because we have been doing like all of my colleagues have been doing a great deal over the last 18 months. So I'll try and really focus on the headlines. As both Professor Rob Bonner and Professor Williams talked about, our focus on FE has really been and continues to be on trying to establish an anti-racist culture across our sector as a whole. For those of you who aren't familiar with the FE sector, we have a relatively small sector in terms of number of institutions. We've got 13 FE institutions in Wales, but the range of what they do is exceptionally diverse. Learners of all ages from 16 up, all levels, all abilities and every educational sector and industry that you can imagine. So coming up with a coherent vision for that and making sure that anti-racism is embedded across everything is a challenging piece of work that we've embarked upon. I'm going to concentrate on one major area of progress and one major challenge that we face. In terms of progress, I think it's right to say that we've had an exceptionally high level of buy-in and commitment from the FE sector helped in no small part by our work with that leadership group whom Professor Williams mentioned in her presentation. This is a UK-wide group which supports leadership in all education sectors but starts in FE and we've got very strong support and challenge from the Black Leadership Group and from our whole FE anti-racist student group which has enabled us to get to where we are. The position that we have is that all our colleges are affiliated with the Black Leadership Group now. All of them also have their own anti-racist action plans in place since March this year and we're going to be getting them to do progress updates for us in December so that we can see what we're doing. There is a real engagement and belief in the anti-racist ambition in the FE sector and we've got a small enough and tight-knit enough sector that we've been able to work with them in a really hands-on way to try and drive that forward. The challenge we face is related to the range of diversity of the sector that I mentioned and like the school sector, Professor Williams has explained the approach to making Black history and anti-racism an integral part of the school's curriculum. We don't have a single curriculum in FE so we don't have the same opportunity to build it in fundamentally across the piece so the approach we're taking to try and remedy that is a really ambitious and unique project to develop an anti-racist set of curriculum modules and tutorials and a pedagogy that can be used across the FE sector. That project is led by Cardiff and Vale College who are really providing incredible leadership to bring together a virtual campus and over the next year we'll be continuing to develop that and to support professional learning across the sector to help deliver that new curriculum. We've got a long way to go in FE as in all of the areas of education that we're talking about this morning. We've recently completed research with our learners and staff which shows that racism absolutely is an issue in FE as it is in all parts of society, particularly incidents of covert racism that people don't always feel able to recognise or call out or that they will be taken seriously so we know that that's the area we've got to focus on. I think that as everyone else has said today we're at a stage where we've made a strong start we've got some of the foundations, we've got the commitment and the will and it's a question for us of keeping up the momentum in the months and years to come as I know it is for every sector. Thank you I will hand that on on to Craig. Thank you firstly for the opportunity to attend this morning's meeting. I will try and be concise as well but like the others because it doesn't come naturally to me so maybe it's an education thing. I don't know maybe it's a trait in education but I'm going to talk a little bit about the five actions that we that are contained in the atrocious rules action plan for higher education that are delivered through essentially through the higher education funding council for those that we support. But I'm going to try not to go off-piece too much but I think there's some really good points already I just kind of want to reflect on because I think this is so important in the context of my area as well. So just to kind of go back a little to the to the action plan the actions can relate to establishing an anti-racism network across the issue sector. That's been up and running for quite some time now I think about eight nine months at least and the feedback has been quite positive in that sense. It seems to be running quite well members are joining all the time and I think it goes back to the point raised earlier in the conversation here to peer learning as well. So I think there's a lot more that network can be used for in relation to sharing best practice and driving forward the changes needed particularly the cultural changes needed to be mentioned a few times already this morning and I think it's super important. There's also an action around publishing for HEFQ to publish an annual quality report with performance measures so that report I understand is either the first year of report will be published within four weeks or so. So I think that's going to be give us all a really good insight hopefully into maybe baseline in where we are and I think it does go back to that really crucial issue around accountability and KPIs etc etc and understanding what's in that report and maybe how it needs to evolve in the future. There's also an action around this has been mentioned around organizations, institutions reviewing their policies and practices that's very much a work in progress across the sector with many institutions. I think it's something that needs to evolve and will probably maybe shouldn't never end and those kind of policies and practices need to be under review as and when necessary. There's also an action around higher institutions monitoring and addressing inequalities including pay disparities so HEFQ have provided some guidance just recently on that for institutions. So again that's going to be something which we need as a Welsh Government and as HEFQ is the regulator I think there's a lot of engagement in the sector we can and are doing not just in year one but in years two, three etc and as new anti-racist Wales action plans evolve evolve thereafter. There's also a commitment within the action plan for organizations to sign up to the race equality charter which is a condition of or an element of funding so HEFQ have made around one million pounds available across the sector which is really supporting organizations to try and drive cultural change in this area. So in a nutshell there are the five actions and some of the program. I think it's really interesting because I've like other colleagues we've had to reflect on the talent around this work and I think one of the key challenges is data so for example I think there's there's a lot more we need to understand around data and I mentioned the annual race equality report that will be published shortly but I think it's really about what you do with it and I think if institutions and organizations are going to willingly give their data then they really need to understand what we're doing with it and how we're using that to drive positive change and the other thing that I just quickly wanted to mention because I know time is short is the kind of positive discrimination versus positive action I've spent many many years before taking this role in the equality space and I just think that's so important and I've encountered instances in the past where like was said this morning there's confusion around the difference between the two and also I think just confusion right I don't necessarily think institutions are necessarily confident around how to apply a positive action when to apply it and they sometimes worry about the perception of implementing positive action so yeah I shall stop there but they are my thoughts so thank you very much Thank you so much Craig, Envis and I'm so sorry about this Lucy Cat is very passionate about education too huge thank you to Envis Marion and Craig lots of really purposeful joined up work happening there and I think as Envis said it's very much set the foundation and now it's sort of for institutions to build on but there is so much work that's clearly happening it's now it's time for the question and answer session there are some really good questions in the Q&A session we may not be able to get around to all of them as we said but if not we will provide written feedback to all your questions that will be shared with everyone who's in attendance today as we approach the end of the event I'd really like to express heartfelt gratitude you know from myself and from our whole implementation team for everyone who's taken the time to join this session to speak at this session and really really support our work I think it's really encouraging it shows that there is that appetite for change and that's often the hardest hurdle to beat so thank you very much also to our speakers for their valuable time and we really appreciate your presence here going to questions I'll try to direct them to the right person but on the whole there I think please come in all of you you know Professor Rogbon and Professor Williams Craig Envis and Marion as you see fit because I think that a lot of them sort of cut across what we're saying first question it's from George Baldwin how useful can the whole school approach to emotional and mental well-being in schools be towards working towards an anti-racist Wales I don't know who wants to go first on that would you like to Envis? Yeah I mean yes very very very useful and very important I mean that piece of work is a wider kind of the responsibility for that policy does sit wider within my division it's very much comes we come from an equity perspective when we think about that whole school approach I think for us and I think what the anti-racist Wales Action Plan has really brought is the the better understanding of the fact that you know if a child or young person is experiencing issues with their own well-being in relation to for example racism or bullying in school that the support that they get is made applicable and specific to them and so what we hear a lot from young people is that you know when they when they need support or when they look for support with something like racism or other types of prejudice related bullying that they that they're looking for support for somebody who looks like them or maybe who shares some of that experience and somebody who understands where they're coming from and so I think that's you know a longer term goal is to make sure that the support is there for schools to be able to access that type of sometimes quite specific support and possibly something that isn't as you know why isn't as widespread or as widespread as it should be at the moment totally agree and Professor Williams you spoke of you know being ethically informed citizens which is one of the four purposes as we know as part of the curriculum for Wales and health and well-being runs right through that so just your comments on this as well would be welcome important responsibility in terms of everyone in this in the school environment to promote well-being of each other and I think you know this is such an important issue I do worry for children from minority backgrounds in this respect because I'm perfectly sure that we have had significant evidence from show races in the red card the commissioners reports coming out we looked at an awful lot of evidence from children at school and I've stood on platforms many a time and said no child should go to school to be abused you know to have to manage abuse or insult or derogatory comment and yet it's so common and when I've been talking about the curriculum with parents and wider public this is the issue that more people bring up than than anything so um yes I rushed over it but embedding um well you know this issue in the notion of well-being and in well-being initiatives is so important and thank you for that question because it is what parents want to hear and want to know that their children feel safeguarded at school absolutely and I think you've just hit the nail on the head professor Williams it is a safeguarding issue and I know there's a lot of work currently underway we we talk a lot about adverse childhood experiences and in many ways racism for many of our minority ethnic children is an adverse childhood experience it stays with them so you know thank you very much for that question the next one I might target to you as well professor Williams and anybody else feel free to come in um and it's about terminology so we I know the word black is being used as an inclusive term and professor Williams has also mentioned gypsy traveller communities um what works so that you know that that terminology is one part of the question but what works second part of the question being what part what work is being done on encouraging the incorporation of Asian histories particularly colonial histories journeys of migration issues like the partition for example yeah yeah fabulous fabulous question because um funny enough I was speaking at a conference just a black history conference just uh this last week and we were talking about how the word black encompasses those of um African and those of the African diaspora Caribbean peoples um and you know that really that that in itself can become exclusive and the Kenevin report as we call it was very clear that we are talking about black Asian and minority ethnic histories broadly very broadly um but I think we need to get beyond that kind of specific and start to try with schools to give them the confidence to work with those big themes the colonialism imperialism empire and once we've got a kind of framework for thinking about those big themes and we can communicate those in ways that are relevant to different age groups you know across the school population then they can draw on their own histories and bring those to bear on those common themes that cut across groups that have been oppressed past present you know groups that have significance and specific histories and it's a way of framing assessments so that young people can take their own paths and their own specific examples but use some of those big coordinating ideas and and those are big words but those words unite that that whole group of perspectives that we're talking about I think the Welsh Government materials that are being produced and are being available are very sensitive to picking out different ethnicities as a starting point so that teachers can you know take um as you said the example of Indian partition for example and and begin to open that up from from a small example the coordinating theme is story come ring Wales's connections with the world past and present the migrations in and the migrations out and if we keep that frame then we are going to be able to touch in on all of the relevance of all of those histories to Wales absolutely would anybody else like to come in on that end this yeah and just wanted to pick up that that issue of confidence is key isn't it it's the confidence of any any of all of our teachers and all of our leaders to actually deal with some you know these are these are really really you know very difficult issues to to to have discussions about with your peers and adults never mind young people but what we know from young people and children is that they will ask questions and that they will you know they they they want they they're sponges right so they want to know more about these things so it's like it's that confidence to be able to to deal with these really difficult often conversations but in age appropriate ways and developmentally appropriate ways that are sensitive to those cultures as well that you've got in front of you so you know a question that I get a lot from teachers is around how do we deal with maybe texts or resources that maybe have derogatory terms or racist slurs or terms in them you know how do we actually deal with that in the classroom you know I want to be we want to be confident in in bringing these things up with our students to have the conversation how do we do that in a way that is a sensitive to considering the children that we've got in front of us but actually maybe that the teacher doesn't have the lived experience themselves and you know so and I think that's where DARPL comes in and be able to have those conversations and that and that professional learning and those discussions with peers and other teachers some of whom will have lived experience or different experiences to have to you know but I think there's something there about maybe we need to to provide clearer guidance on on some of those more kind of nuanced things as well absolutely thank you Envis and then the last question and I am aware that there are several questions that haven't been answered and as I say we will provide a written feedback on that next one is more for Professor Oak Bonner and Craig but again I know all of you feel free to come in and it's following on from Craig's point that many institute institutions don't understand positive action what that means so what are the Welsh government doing to help them and what can the Welsh government do to help those institutions because a lot of policy reporting is about professors about professors like networking and providing support but what are the outcomes we wish to secure and what can we do to help further Professor first okay I think that's a really good question and it is also a question that is at the heart of the outcomes that we are finding so we think we are doing all the things we can we are following a quality of opportunities but we are having outcomes that are racialized largely because you know people are applying a colorblind approach without due regard to the historical anomalies that have afflicted particular groups of people in the society and really institutions of higher learning should understand and do understand that they have their preside public sector organizations so they are under covered under public sector quality duties I imagine so they are legally charged to not discriminate or to do everything possible to ensure that groups of people are not discriminated against so this is the law and it's the law that they are not applying and under the qualities act of 2010 there are specific provisions on that that talk about positive action and how you can use that and there are also consultancies and individuals out there that would be able to train them in this tune if it is what they want to use it isn't particularly difficult it's just that people have an aversion to anything that implies equalizing opportunity artificially because people like to believe that everybody has the same opportunity to achieve or to do anything and people dislike it when you say to them that what they have achieved maybe anything other than their hard work and it may not necessarily be what you are saying all you are saying is that you are not being as fair as you can to other members of the community but you are right this is something that perhaps the worst government policy makers should take away and see how they can maybe through healthcare or other organizations and institutions try to help these institutions to be able to train their people to become more confident about positive action I think that's what they have been doing by the way you know what they've been doing is positive action only in favor of white people because positive action for instance in in recruitment does not say that if you have a black minority ethnic Asian gymsiroma traveler candidate that is less qualified than a white person that you should take them no that's not positive action it doesn't say that it says that if you have two people that are at the same level identical candidates that you can choose the candidate that is underrepresented what we've been doing is positive action in favor of white so if they are the same level we choose white so that is a positive action only it's not favoring the people that are underrepresented thank you very very much Professor O'Connor I hope that you know I think that really directly answers the question and I hope it does we are overrunning slightly so absolute apologies but I think as we know we could have this could have been a week long conference there is so much to discuss here so you know thank you very much as we approach the end of the event I know again thank you very very much to all the speakers and all of you for attending it would be really helpful if you leave a comment on how you found the session and what you'd like to see in future sessions it helps us shape these webinars so please please feel free to do that our next webinar will be on the 22nd of November and the focus is on health please do attend if you can all of you who are on in the session today will be forwarded the link automatically anyone new who's interested you just need to fill in a form and return to our mailbox but now again Diocon, Vaudiao, Neto, Pao for a really stimulating discussion and we will be in touch with everybody with feedback to questions that we haven't answered and any follow-ups please contact the anti-racist race action plan implementation team more discussion you know the more broadly we can sort of work together to build on this the better thank you very much everybody bye have a lovely day