 Welcome to Pookey Ponders, the podcast where I explore big questions with brilliant people. I'm Pookey Nightsmith and I'm your host. Today's question is, what is the role of the charity sector in rooting out racism? And I'm in conversation with Kadra Abdinassia. Hi everyone, so I'm Kadra Abdinassia and I'm one of the organisers of the Charity So White campaign. I also work in the charity sector on children and young people's mental health. And so the question today is, what is the role of the charity sector in rooting out racism, which I believe is basically, yeah, why charities say why exist. So can you tell me a little bit about that? Yeah, absolutely. So the kind of key aim of the campaign is for the charity sector to take the lead in rooting out racism from within our society. But the first step towards achieving that for us is really the sector recognising how within itself it perpetuates racism and then takes some tangible steps towards beginning to root that out. Wow. So, OK, so many questions. What do we mean by rooting out racism for a start? What does that even mean? Yeah, OK, so just within the charity sector context, so the charity sector both indirectly and directly perpetuates racism and that manifested in so many different ways. So throughout the course of the campaign, we're celebrating our one-year anniversary next month. We've heard of like lots of instances of people of colour themselves facing racial discrimination within the charity sector, but it also extends to the sector's work with its beneficiaries. So sometimes they might be continuing really harmful practices that actually don't really empower and equip communities of colour. For example, in other ways we see that kind of white saviour complex narrative still being perpetuated by the campaigns that charity sector charities put out there. So these are the kind of different ways that racism within itself permeates the work of the sector. So we really need to have open and honest conversations about how we can begin to deconstruct that and really centre communities of colour at the heart of the work we're trying to do in that sense. Have you been involved from the beginning? Yes, slightly. So I'm not one of the founding members, but I was the first kind of cohort to join the organising committee in September. Wow, and what kind of inspired you to join? How did you get involved and what do you see your role as? Yeah, so if I give you maybe a bit of a background to the campaign, and maybe that will help a little bit. The campaign was initiated last August off the back of some really racist and harmful training material that Citizens Device Bureau was rolling out nationally for all of its volunteers. And it was all about working with Black and minority ethnic communities. There was a slide within this material that looked at the key barriers faced when working with BAME communities. And it had really horrible and unfounded racial stereotypes like they're often late, they don't trust authorities, high levels of electricity, and this is 2019 I'm talking about. Wow. And that wasn't questioned. So, you know, one of the founding members had raised that internally several times, and it kind of fell on deaf ears in some ways. And so the campaign was launched in August off the back of that. And on the first day it launched on Twitter, we had over 3000 people engage, you know, sharing their experiences of why charity was so white. So it's a quite a controversial hashtag in itself. I saw that and I just, you know, I was like, I actually recognize and resonate with a lot of the things people are sharing. And I just felt, you know, I really want to get involved because I want people of color to feel comfortable working in the sector, especially as a sector because we focus on disadvantaged and marginalized communities in that sense. It's really been trying to reflect them as much as possible in our work. And so, yeah, that kind of really inspired me to take part in that and spin the rest of history. Wow. So are they still using these materials? No, they're not. So they did launch an internal review into how that all came about. But I think, yeah, ultimately, you know, if you don't really embed kind of anti racist approaches within your organization, and if you don't have people from those communities reflected, these kind of things can kind of happen and go unchallenged in some ways. But yeah, I'm happy to say that today are not continues to use that material. That's good. That's good. That's yeah. And that's it. And hopefully it's kind of made them sort of stop and reflect out of interest, the person who kind of initially picked that up. Was that someone who was a person of color or was it white? Yeah, yeah. So as the committee, we are all people of color who work within the sector. So that's something that's really important to us because it's not that we're all experts in race and racism. But is that we're experts in on lived experience. So that's something that's a really important part of the campaign. And hearing you talk about it, it feels like it's a similar kind of vibe and correct me if I'm wrong on this, but to the kind of everyday sexism campaign. Is that right? It's like the everyday racism. So yeah, the idea. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. But I think the additional kind of lens also is that the charity sector often hides behind good intentions. Yeah, because we're seen as like the sector that is there to pick up the pieces and to advocate for those who are seldom heard. But actually, it's kind of ironic that these things still happen within that sector. And you said that you say you will bring your lived experience as in your lived experience of just kind of life as a person of color or lived experience of specifically, you know, kind of, yeah, experiencing racism directly. Yeah, a bit of both, I would say. Yeah. So again, it's just obviously now in current kind of circumstances with both COVID and the Black Lives Matter disproportionately impacting people of color. We're starting to see that anyone who's a person of color who works in the charity sectors being asked, you know, by higher up, hey, why don't you help us on the statement or what can we do? You know, can I speak to you about racism? And yeah, I mean, I probably couldn't tell you anybody in the committee who hasn't experienced some form of racial discrimination working in the sector. And some of it, again, as I said, it can be indirect. So, you know, being overlooked for a job promotion when you're equally qualified as your kind of white counterpart to really direct. You know, I've had, I couldn't tell you how many times I had people, my hair's straightened a bit today, but when my hair's natural, I couldn't tell you how many times I've had people just say these are things. And then again, just seeing how we sometimes, how we work with our beneficiaries for me, it's seeing that play out from a kind of research perspective or comms perspective in terms of how we talk about people of color. So we might refer to them as hard to reach. So that is kind of like putting the onus on them. And it's like, oh, no, actually, we are services and charities are the ones that are hard to reach. Not these, not, you know, not these communities. So yeah, it's for me personally, it's played out in all sorts of different ways. It's really, it's interesting because obviously I, I've worked with you in the past and was involved in recruiting you and we worked together at the Children and Young People's Mental Health Coalition. And I'm just kind of trying to reflect, you know, you have to look in with don't even think, well, did, you know, does any of this ever sort of flavoured or changed anything that I did. And I think certainly thinking back on that recruitment process, you did stand out in that, you know, we were excited to be able to actually introduce a bit of diversity. And I don't think we had that. But then it does make me stop and think, well, how does that feel for you right now? If everybody is suddenly interested in what you have to say because of the color of your skin, when maybe before you felt unheard. How, I mean, wow, there's a question in there somewhere, Kedra, go for it. Yeah, absolutely. I completely, I completely agree. I think right now where I work, there's always been that kind of focus on inequalities and addressing discrimination. So I don't feel unheard and I never felt unheard. So again, I got involved in charity so I before COVID and Black Lives Matter. And so that was something we were talking about, you know, before it's fashionable in that sense. Yeah, that's not the right word. And so like we were always in some ways committed to trying to address these things. But I think in the sort of mental health charity world, we always feel and it's true that most people don't have good experiences within the mental health system. But actually, if we look deeper within that, you know, it's probably young black men, for example, who find it the hardest kind of navigating the system and that's why they're overrepresented in more acute or restrictive settings. And so I definitely think there's more we can kind of do around that. And maybe it takes people like me who can kind of, you know, who has some insight into that experience to kind of raise these points. But yeah, I think, you know, it's a marathon and not a sprint. And so we need to kind of all recognize that and not pay lip service to all this talk at the moment around racism, because it's something that's been with us for for centuries. And you've, at the Center for Mental Health where you work, actually, there's been loads of work that you're doing as a charity around sort of health inequality and mental health inequality and the impact on BAME. Is that something that you kind of directly influenced that those things have been taken up? What was that kind of happening before and anyway? No, yeah, exactly. That stuff was happening already. So they launched last year a commission for equality and mental health. And again, as part of that, having people with lived experience on the commission board, leading that inquiry. Yeah, so I hadn't been involved in any of that stuff. But I did recently write a blog because, you know, everyone's writing a blog these days on racism. And it was really interesting just, you know, digging back into our kind of research over the last few decades. And there was a really comprehensive report we produced 20 years ago on African Caribbean people's experiences in the mental health system. And it was just so striking for me to see that nothing really has changed in terms of all the findings and recommendations, you know, people not feeling heard, people, you know, stigma being an issue within some communities, people, you know, not trusting services or being kind of mistreated and without, you know, any dignity in the system is something that we still hear so much about. So yeah, I think it's, you know, not really now is the time for the action and you don't need any more evidence around inequality from my perspective. So what needs to happen? How do we change it? Yeah, so in terms of the work we've been doing, our charities are white for us, I think it is the starting point is having an open and candid conversation about racism. And also acknowledging that it exists within our organizations and it's not about pinpointing specific individuals. For us, it's just recognizing charities and unfortunately, especially older charities are kind of rooted in, you know, all sorts of historical issues around like racism, colonialism and things like that. And so and we haven't kind of changed in the way we've been working in that sense. It's always doing something to vulnerable communities rather than really building capacity, empowering them, equipping them with the tools they need to, you know, thrive in their local communities. It's always been this, you know, perpetuation of us existing as a sector, and that we need to be that it's almost like, you know, altruism on steroids in some ways. And, you know, we should be working ourselves out of the job, and we shouldn't, we shouldn't need to be here, you know, picking up the pieces of government or just doing really piecemeal work with communities. So we've been having lots of conversations with charity leaders around this. You know, some of them have been open and public with their kind of declarations around institutional racism. And some have been, you know, have gone a step further and have made some really tangible commitments around, you know, transforming recruitment practices, for example, thinking about how they get more lived experience voices, shaping their strategies. But I think there's not a one size fits all approach because every charity has its, you know, slightly different kind of issues and dynamics at play. But yeah, I think the main thing is to kind of stay a little bit away from this conversation around diversity and inclusion, because really, it's about power and privilege and recognizing how that manifests as a starting point, because you can have however many people of color working in an organization, but if it's institutions and policies and practices are, you know, not, don't have racial equality at the heart of it, then we're not going to really make that much progress. And those people will end up leaving eventually because of the impact of all these things. Wow. And how do we enable that kind of power and privilege for everyone of every color? Yeah, how does that actually look like in practice? Is there any like good practice that you can kind of draw on or examples where it's working well? Yeah, I think one area I think one area we're really interested in again is thinking about senior leadership and boards of trustees again. It's a little known fact but board of boards of trustees is actually within the remit to like promote diversity within the organization that they are a guardian of. And that means it's kind of legally binding as part of their trusty ship role. Well, I think it's something like 99% of charity trustees are white. So again, it's thinking about what are the barriers for black minority ethnic and working class people's people becoming trustees. And we do know what those barriers are is because trust becoming a trustee means you don't really get paid to do that work. So do we need to kind of reform the way some of that governance work happens? And yeah, there's there's lots of, you know, really fantastic anti-racist training out there. I couldn't point to a specific one. But I think each organization probably needs to undertake an assessment of some sort internally and consult their kind of being members of staff in terms of what the needs and the gaps might be. And then try and source something that works around that rather than just commissioning a blanket training package. Because, yeah, it is really quite nuanced. And, you know, there's a lot of focus now on unconscious bias training, for example, which I think is useful and important in some ways. But again, you know, what are you going to do from doing what you're going to do differently having done that training in your organization? And do you have the power to shift things institutionally or not? But yeah, just more broadly, I guess, in society, I think thinking about how we embed some of this work around racial literacy and education is really important. So we've done quite a lot of work around health and social care, education in schools, for example, in PSHE. And there's, you know, really great material that's emerging around talking to young people about racism and discrimination. And obviously, the school that tried to end racism program, that's some channel for, I've found that super fascinating to watch. Which just goes to show actually we're not really setting our children and young people up to have those conversations when they need to, you know. So I think starting early, as we say, with all sorts of other kind of things like sex education, etc. That I think will kind of lead to real incremental changes in our society over time. What does it look like getting it right, you know, if we decided that, yeah, we want all of our children to be a lot more kind of, you use the term racially literate, right? What does that actually mean? I think what's been really interesting is like, you know, racism is always like the elephant in the room. People just feel awkward talking about it. And it's just like, you know, even some, you know, having people describe me as black seems to be like, I can't say the B word, which is like, but I am black. You know, if you were to describe me in a group of like other people and like, you know, which ones can't just just say black is not an issue. But I think that we live in a society where everyone's sort of walking on eggshells around race. I think we've made a lot more progress around LGBT plus issues, for example, and having those open and honest conversations. But I think definitely things that will help is like having open dialogue and conversations. And I don't think, you know, unless you're saying something horribly offensive, there's not really anything, a wrong question to ask really about that as long as they're facilitated in a safe way. So that's why school can be a great place. But also it's about representation. So, you know, thinking about through the arts world and media, how can we better include people of colour in our programming and make normalised conversations around race and racism and difference just more generally. I think we've got a long way to go. That side of things. How do you feel about all the stuff around to a black lives matter. So obviously this was an agenda that you were already really heavily involved with for months before this kind of trigger point happened. And we have seen a huge interest suddenly in everybody feeling the need to talk about this to do something about this to take action. Like, are you seeing this as a as a positive moment in time or do you think we're kind of drowning in noise a little bit just from this one campaign. I think, to be honest, I've felt really conflicted by it all, both personally and professionally because it's just been really emotionally draining period. And people, people often describe COVID is a virus that is, you know, plaguing our society today, but racism is a pandemic and it's something that's been with us and ignored and has been ignored for so long. And that's why, you know, it's no coincidence that it's people of colour being disproportionately impacted by COVID because of racism. But also, you know, during this period, we've seen things like in London, one in eight young black men being stopped and search in May alone, which is just like really shocking. Wow. One in eight. As in one in literally one in eight. One in eight young men. And so I just, I feel like we've not made any progress as a society is just been disheartening that we've had so many inquiries into, you know, racism across different sectors like the police, education, health, mental health. And there's just not been really, you know, and we always talk about race. A lot of people say, yeah, that's why, you know, LGBT, you know, kind of rights has, you know, accelerated in terms of like really tangible action. But race is something we've been talking about for much longer, but have made no progress because we're always talking about it. So I think it's just, we're at this kind of pivotal moment now where I think we really do need to just take forward the recommendations from all those reviews rather than commissioning other reviews as, you know, being done by this government. And, you know, we already even free charity so why. So if I can talk a little bit about some of the work we've been doing. We produced a position paper end of March on the likely disproportionate impact of COVID on people of color before it was even a thing, right, because we already knew all the kind of health inequalities people of color face. And when you look at the kind of groups that have underlying conditions that are more susceptible to COVID that again is disproportionately, you know, Bangladeshi men or African women and all these other groups we were talking about here. So, like, it shouldn't have come as a shock that these are the people who would have both contracted and have passed from the virus disproportionately. And we could have done things to really mitigate against that and really protect people and make sure they were informed about, you know, all the risks, post to them in their occupations and what have you. But I think we left that to lay and, you know, just commissioned a review that told us everything that was already contained and summarized in the paper we did so it didn't tell us anything new. So that that's disappointing. Yeah, it's just a lack of action really. It's like I can hear the frustration in you like it feel. So. So you look to like LGBTQ plus. I don't know how many letters we need to put in there now as a part where actually we've made more progress. So this is a conversation we've been having an action has happened and you feel like racism needs to follow a more similar trajectory. Am I understanding that right. Yeah, yeah, I'm definitely not saying that everything's been like cracked around LGBT rights because of course it has not in any way and you know we know that trans people for example have been, you know, facing all sorts of challenges recently. But I think just in terms of like, like the equalities agenda in general, I think like different groups with protected characteristics progress has been at different levels. Yeah, I think, you know, we either take this really holistic equalities approach and try and progress alongside that, but just recognizing within that, you know, being people, for example, and people with disabilities, you know, we're still so behind in terms of making any kind of real changes in our society. Yeah. And do you think change needs to come like from the top is this like a policy level kind of a thing or is this about the changes that we all need to make in just how we act and behave every day. Yeah, I think they need all levels really any speed dismantled so we talk about at charity so we talk about the four eyes of oppression, if it's a useful lens to kind of describe but is thinking about internalized racism and how we address that interpersonal racism which is things that you know we can all kind of deal with institutional racism. So that's government businesses, etc. And then ideological, which is just again something that really drives racism in other forms. And so it's a useful kind of prison for us to think about action across these different levels. And do you think any of those are more important than the others or are they equally. I think they're equally important. Some might be more challenging to kind of address, you know, for example, institutional, especially for example within the education system because this is something we've been talking about in Britain for the last, I don't know, 50 years. There's probably been so many studies on, you know, educational disparities between working class boys and black boys, for example, and other groups and you know, yeah, we've just not made a huge amount of progress in that sense. What are the things you think that kind of everyone can do like loads of people will be listening to this and they'll be thinking well I can't you know I don't sit highly within an organization or I don't have political sway but we all go about our day to day lives like what can each of us do that might begin to change this. Yeah, definitely. I think so there's been during this Black Lives Matter period, there's been so many lists being circulated in terms of educational resources. I think, you know, I've been struck by so many people just being surprised at like how racism plays our society and they were just completely taken aback by the George Floyd incident. But for me, that was just another kind of incident that's been happening, you know, it's just, it's become so normalized. So I think, you know, we all have to really educate ourselves around these issues and thinking about again like how what power and privilege we benefit from in society, and maybe, you know, how we can be a really good supportive ally to people of colour, for example. So yeah, lots of really fantastic resources emerging around what that looks like. But I think everybody has a role to play, but it doesn't matter how small your role is, you know, all these things lead to kind of bigger change. And how can we be a good ally? So, you know, as your kind of friend and colleague, what are the things that I can be doing to be an ally to you, for example? Like I've probably not got that right, what do I need to change? Yeah, I think, you know, it's just checking in, being supportive, you know, when this whole incident happened, recognising how that is traumatising for people of colour, for example. You know, not sharing really harmful content and saying, hey, you know, look at this thing, because that happened quite a lot. I think I was personally overwhelmed by people sending me really, you know, we talk about social media and violence and stuff being circulated and how that affects our mental health. But it really does. So just thinking and being mindful about what might be shared. Listening, I think is really, really powerful. Through our work, again, just trying to champion and challenge things where they exist. So, you know, it doesn't have to just be me raising an issue about, you know, why are young black men facing challenges in the mental health system? I think it's for all of us to kind of flag and challenge any kind of inequality in that sense that we see. Yeah. And do you have any advice in terms of us overcoming our awkwardness about this? Because you kind of touched on this before, but it is an issue and I feel it. You know, when I talk to you, do I call you black? Do I call you a person of colour? What do I say? Actually, sometimes being fearful of kind of saying the wrong thing and kind of maybe inadvertently causing harm in some way that way just stops the conversation. And, you know, like if we were having a conversation about suicide, then I could talk about that really confidently because I'm always looking to break down that stigma and other people worry about saying the wrong thing. But I've kind of gotten over that and I can do that. But this, I feel so uncomfortable and I don't want to get it wrong. But then the wrong thing is just to walk away, right? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I think a part of this is actually acknowledging the fact that we all have to sit in some level of discomfort for some time until those barriers break down. And that's just the nature of it. Again, you know, not wanting to draw too many comparisons with LGBT issues, but a lot of those kind of conversations earlier on, I'm sure there was a lot of discomfort around like what you say. For me personally, in terms of terminology, as long as things are not offensive, I don't really feel that strongly because I don't think any of these words are perfect. But I think it's about being really specific if you're talking about a specific group of people. So for example, what we see with the government is that there is a lot of talk around diversity and people really hate the term black and minority ethnic. But actually, they might be just talking about Asian people, but they use the term being like it's really representative of a broader group. And it's like, no, because there's nobody black involved in this. And actually it is black people being impacted the most by X, for example. So let's just use the term black when we know, for example, in maternity care, black women are the ones who are five times more likely to die during childbirth, not being women. Is that true? Black women are five times more likely to die during childbirth? Yeah, that's true. Why? Again, all sorts of reasons, kind of discrimination being a factor, the biggest factor really around that. So again, it doesn't help if you kind of broaden out the group in some ways because the experiences of people of color are really broad in that sense. But sorry, what was your question again? I was sorry, I was just hung up on five times more likely to die during childbirth if you're black. I know, but can you imagine we've known this for like the past, you know, four years or something. And, you know, it's only taken. How do, what's the... Yeah, I think there was like a big maternal death inquiry that was undertaken. I think the report is called Embrace Report. Okay. Consciously linked. And has anything changed as a result of us knowing this? Not really, no. And I mean, it's really tragic, but there was a really recent death of a black woman who's a big social media influencer. And we don't really know the circumstances yet behind that. But it just brought the conversation back to life and thinking about what does it actually mean for black women during lockdown and their maternal care? She's eight months pregnant. Was that the... Yeah, yeah. So that was a really awful kind of incident. But, you know, if that was pre-COVID, what could it be like during this kind of lockdown period? But yeah, we've... Yeah, I've looked into this because I was just personally was interested in all sorts of kind of challenges. And there, unfortunately, still is a bit of, you know, significant racism within medicine. So there's still text books out there that say that black people can tolerate more pain. And so is that a reason why a black woman given birth might not be administered painkillers, for example? Black... I've never heard... Okay, well, sorry. Excuse my ignorance. And I'm a very inquisitive person. So there are text books that say that black people can tolerate more pain. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And this stems from, like, slavery and all these other things where they were trying to justify their use of, like, black patients for health experiments and things like that. I'm assuming it's just crap, right? That's not true. Of course it's crap. Of course it's crap. Okay. It's all kind of rooted in, yeah, weird racist scientists from back in the day. Wow. And unfortunately, still with us today. And there's a really interesting campaign, actually, this week, looking at different kind of skin conditions. You know, like when they show them in medical textbooks, they kind of use, like, white skin as, like, the default skin to kind of show different things. But actually, on black people, for example, measles or something like that looks really different on their skin. But doctors would overlook that because they wouldn't be able to spot it because the textbooks just showed them on white skin. So there's been this whole movement towards, like, actually any type of skin condition that's trying to show it across a spectrum of skin tones so that you can see what it could look like. I'm saying this because I had chickenpox in January. Oh, wow. That definitely weren't red on my skin. But yeah, I was able to identify them successfully. Wow. That's, and I think that's, that's the thing that's interesting is how this seems to pervade into every little domain of life, actually, that, yeah, when you stop and you think about it, this is, it's kind of everywhere, isn't it? And I guess in the kind of work that I do, I'm often talking to people about needing to be diverse and showing every kind of person in their resources and making sure that kids can see people like them and have role models like them. But actually, that's really hard and whether that's because we're looking to represent disability or ethnicity or whatever it might be, it is very hard to find resources which are diverse and inclusive. But I don't think I've ever really, yeah, you've made me really stop and think about how much further that goes than the kind of I'm thinking about, you know, the displays in our schools or whatever, but yeah, yeah, everywhere, everywhere. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah. Another interesting fun fact that I looked into recently as well was that, so I went on a really interesting webinar course on racial trauma. And they actually, as part of that, flagged that, you know, the diagnostic statistical manual for mental health. So there's like 300 conditions, mental health conditions within that, not one of them recognize racism as a stressor or poor mental health. But again, it's just rooted both in physical and mental health, you know, research and academia. So I think there's definitely, you know, I would love to work with you and others around like how can we begin to, you know, challenge this because of course, you know, racism affects your well-being and mental health. It does. It just does. No matter what condition you have, it would in some ways because if it doesn't affect your condition directly, it might affect your access to help. Which is just sickening actually on every level. Yeah, just wrong. Absolutely wrong. What's racial trauma? So racial trauma is interesting. So it's kind of like there's emerging kind of literature around experiencing racism, both directly or indirectly, or experiencing like a single incident or cumulative forms of like racism is like almost akin to experiencing PTSD. That it really, you know, people, you know, affects their sleep, you know, fuels kind of anxiety and people kind of replay racist kind of incidents in their mind. But yeah, so and also it's a factor within anxiety and depression for people so that this is kind of now being described as experiencing racial trauma. This all sounds quite depressing. Like, you know, is there kind of cause for hope here or anything that you're kind of hanging on to or this must be pretty hard to be dealing with this all the time and being faced with these pretty grim statistics and realities. Yeah, I think for me is that, you know, again, shining the light that these things exist is the first starting point. And then hopefully, you know, we can create and design services that recognize that. So again, it's like, you know, we already do have interventions around trauma informed approaches that will again support people who might experience racial trauma. But it's just recognizing that as like an issue that some children and people face and then responding effectively to it. But I think that again, language is a big thing that's important because a lot of people who experience racial trauma might not necessarily recognize it as like a mental health thing, for example, because people might just be so used to experiencing racism. It's like, oh, you know, that's just life. And I think it's sad that we live in a world where, you know, children have to be told that they're different and that they might be treated differently because of the color of their skin. And, you know, I would wish for us to like not have to do that or our kind of services are equipped to respond and mitigate against any of those effects. And that we just completely dismantle and eradicate it. But we're just starting with the charity sector because you can't do everything and everything. Yeah, but if we can get it right, then maybe it's something we can replicate in other kind of settings. Why the charity sector particularly is it because racism is especially bad within the charity sector or did it feel more likely to change or? Not that it's particularly bad, but I think definitely, you know, we're kind of rooted in champion equality and advocating again, like I said, for people who aren't really heard and involved in decision making. So I think we're prime to do that. But actually, you know, and we've got people who are really talented and, you know, people don't go in for it, go into the sector for money. They tend to be really committed and passionate about making a change. So yeah, I think it's definitely a fertile kind of environment to addressing these things. And ultimately, for us, it's like, we don't want to burn down the charity sector by no means, we just want to make it more effective. And it's one of the ways to do that is just recognizing that, you know, we ourselves kind of perpetuate racism in some ways. But let's just take small steps to kind of challenging ourselves and trying to reduce that playing out in our work. And are these messages and ideas being kind of universally well received within the sector or are you getting any pushback? Yeah, I would say they are universally being well received. But again, it's this idea that, you know, some people and organizations might be paying lip service to it. So putting out a really nice, you know, nicely worded anti racist statement. But you know, is that the reality within their organizations in terms of making things happen. So I think we need to also acknowledge that some of it will take funding as a sector. You know, it's not things that you can necessarily do for free. You know, like overhauling your recruitment approaches, for example, you're going to have to put a budget towards that. So, you know, let's back up the commitments and the speak with action and funding. What would that money be spent on? So say, yeah, a charity decided they were going to invest in overhauling their recruitment process to make it well to improve it. What would they actually do? What would they spend that money on? I mean, I would say, for example, consultation work, right? A lot of the time the charity sector expects to consult people with lived experience for free. And I personally am so against that because, you know, you have to pay that that for me is a form of expertise just as much as a consultant offers you. So you should pay equivalent to that or at least pay something towards that. And so that's an area, for example, that, you know, you should kind of root your root the work and the investigations around some of the challenges you have in recruitment in people's lived experiences and pay them for that. And yeah, I think you're just not turning too much to like consultants for everything, but trying to value and support and pay the people within your organizations and within the communities you serve. So it's more about actually paying for that experience and give it and paying people fairly rather than that you would be spending the money sort of overhauling the procedure as such. Yeah, yeah, but I think, you know, we've been doing recruitment in the same way for such a long time so they could be really creative and different ways to test people's competencies. I, for one, for example, don't feel everyone who works in the charity sector, you know, it's a really hard sector to get into. So when I was getting into the charity sector, I was doing an internship and I had two other jobs. I was working part-time in the school and I was tutoring. So I was almost like working six, seven days a week and just to do an unpaid internship. So I think, again, it's really important for us to like end unpaid volunteer roles and internships when they're really jobs. Yeah, yeah, I hear you on that. And I think that regardless of the colour of someone's skin, I think that's really important actually that people have backgrounds because it'd be the same if you were, you know, if you were coming from background of poverty and I've definitely interviewed in the past at that kind of level, that kind of internship entry role level and felt that all the people who were presented to me were basically privileged. Like whatever their colour, they came from a background where they've been supported to, you know, get the experience they needed to enter the workplace. Yeah. You talked before just going backwards in the conversation a little bit about this idea of groups being hard to reach and actually it's not the groups that are hard to reach. It's the charity that's inaccessible to the groups. Talk to me a little bit about that and how do we change that? Yeah, I think for me, it's like, for example, there might be an opportunity for the charity sector to facilitate a conversation with this department for education, for example. What we would do is like post these opportunities on Twitter and on, you know, in our email bulletins or something like that, that, you know, and then if we don't get a take up from underserved communities, we say, well, they're hard to reach and it's like, why would they follow you on Twitter? Yeah. You know, and so I think it's about us going to where these communities are and being really proactive. So what are the spaces that they and the mediums that they engage with and trying to encourage their kind of engagement through those avenues rather than expecting them to like see our kind of call outs on our channels. Yeah. I just think it's so ridiculous because if I was a teenager, I would definitely not see any charity. I would not be following them on Twitter. No. You know, in any way. So yeah, we need to be going to where they are, again, trying to have incentives again, you know, and covering expenses. I think that's just such an underestimated kind of issue. But if people can't get to where you're holding your consultation, for example, if it's face to face in the future, how do you expect them to, you know, engage? That might be a young person who's living in poverty and just doesn't have the means to make it to the session, but would absolutely have loads to contribute to the discussion. So trying to understand and navigate those barriers. So a couple of things to pick up on there. First of all, is there any good practice or ideas that you can share about, you know, you said we'll go to where they are? Where are they? Like where do where do we go? Where do we place these ads? Where do we recruit for people if we want to genuinely involve them? Yeah, so one of our kind of key asks recently of the government and the charity sector is really prioritising BAME led community groups, because actually people and communities are more likely to engage in services where people look like them. They work more effectively as charities within communities, but we know, you know, they've been massively impacted by the pandemic financially. So, you know, it's thinking about how we can best support them to, you know, engage with those groups. And is there anything that we need to do in terms of, so, okay, so imagine we've taken that step and we've managed to engage better with the communities we've gone to where we will find those who we wish to engage with. What then do we need to do in terms of reassuring that they will be genuinely seen and heard and that they're coming into a safe space where they can share their views, because maybe I'm wrong, but I'm guessing that that could be a potential barrier as well. Yeah, absolutely. I think where possible, I really like it where when from the onset we can engage communities that we're trying to, you know, study in the design of our research programmes because that's where you can really begin to deconstruct and understand what might be some of their hesitations and build that in from the beginning. So I think often what we do is that we kind of, as researchers or academics or policy people, we decide what the script is and what we're going to focus on and then we're like, come and tell us about this and actually the problem for them might be completely different. So we should, co-production should be kind of embedded from the onset. Yeah. And then that could affect the way that we do engagement. For example, it might not be a focus group or interview, but, you know, I think we can't underestimate the creativity and solutions that communities have. And we really should be looking to them around how best to kind of engage them. And then I think beyond that, often what happens is that we consult people, we get the research that we want and we just kind of drop them. And it's like, why? You know, and so for people that emotionally again, so invested in this work and have contributed to it, what can we do to kind of keep them along in the journey? It could be small things like, you know, inviting them to kind of present pop research, you know, wherever we might be sharing it, having them involved in like the influencing work around it. And there might be a follow up in the future. I know all these things are like funding dependent, but if we ask for it in the beginning and build it in, there might be a chance that we could actually get funding for it. Yeah. And I think that you're right. It's important. And actually, if we can't do the work properly, maybe we shouldn't be doing it because I think, I don't know, I feel quite strongly sometimes that we end up doing these things in a slightly half hearted way. And I think it can do more harm than good, saying that this matters. And then actually not really engaging, not really hearing, not really responding is, I think, poor. Yeah, definitely. I think especially for me in the mental health sphere, that always happens with young people, isn't it? It's like, hey, why don't you come on TV and tell us about your experience of self harm. And then it was just like, okay, and then we just kind of, you know, get rid of them after that, which is really sad. Like, I think it really needs a lot of thought and consideration around, you know, people's kind of the impact these things can have on people. And yeah, I think it's all about relationships as well, you know, and with, you know, good boundaries obviously in place, but really building relationships with people. It's a trusting relationship and it's somebody and a group you can always go back to over time as well as really important. So it sounds like you've got a vision of this kind of involvement that is, it's not as it is at the moment where it is just a kind of, you know, quick, we hear what you have to say and you're gone, but rather that this is about working with people over time and maybe building their skills and their capacity to really be involved and kind of form part of that. Does that kind of fit? Yeah, absolutely. And I think as part of that actually, there are some really good examples like MacUK, it's one charity based in North London where, you know, a lot of the young people they involve in their engagement work and in their services. There's an opportunity and a pathway for them to like get employed by the organization. So again, that could be something that you never know you might inspire some of the groups that you're consulting to get into research or to get into something. You know, just by their kind of engagement in that process. Yes, because they're actually just seeing different things that might be, yeah, might become open to them. They weren't aware of before. Yeah, absolutely. It's interesting what you said before about maybe trying to be a bit more imaginative about how we engage people as well. It made me think about a project that I came across recently by a youth group in Islington and a bunch of black kids essentially created a wrap about stress and anxiety and like the trauma brain and a what they produced was just so much better than anything I've ever done and explained it better. And it also it was just, I mean, it was really cool, really accessible to kids of any color I think and would make kids want to learn about this thing that I'm not going to be able to teach them in such a meaningful way. But I think I would hope also for the kids that were involved probably meant that, yeah, they did feel sort of hard and like they've made a bit of a difference there and they're seeing people respond really well to this resource. But I mean, I don't know. I'm due to talk to them actually just because I saw it and was like, this is wicked. I want to know more, but I'm interested to know, you know, how would a project like that come about someone's obviously had to really go out there and find them and encourage them and commission it properly like that would have had significant investment of resource of one type or another. So how do we encourage that kind of thing, assuming that you I mean, I think it's great. I don't know if you agree with that kind of project. Yeah, yeah. Now, absolutely, that sounds brilliant. And like, yeah, that's the kind of engagement work that I love, like it's just so authentic and accessible. Like you say, research and, you know, all these conversations around mental health and social justice doesn't need to just sit within an academic kind of framework in that sense. So I think it is really kind of capturing evidence and examples such as that and trying to get, you know, statutory services to take a more kind of user led approach in their work. They talk about user led and pass incentive quite a lot. And I think there's there's space within that for this kind of work to fit in with, you know, really dedicated resourcing and commitment. Yeah, I think resource is always really the challenge around this. But I think definitely social media has shown us there's really cost effective ways. I've seen so many inspiring ticktocks during the lockdown period of you know young people sharing like myths, like doing myth busting work for a ticktock, for example, and I was like, this is just amazing, because this has just gone out to all the young people and they know that 5G powers don't cause COVID, you know, through that medium. So yeah, I think it's, it's again, when I say go into young people where they are, it even means online thinking about the kind of spaces and the conversations and communities they're involved in. And what are things that are of interest to them be it music, arts, you know, ticktock, and trying to really take an asset based approach, rather than a deficit based approach and getting them to fit around our really rigid systems. I talk about us like we're really horrible people, but we're not just, you know, just being a lot more kind of connected with what's going on with groups. And do you think it's okay to have fun with it? Like, yeah, because it's a really serious topic, but it strikes me that sometimes laughter is the thing that can connect. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, I think I've just had personally for me, it's been, you know, just seeing. So a lot of people have been talking about this massive like awakening to racism. And for so many of us, it's like, you know, we felt like we've been gaslit all this time, because we talked about racism and stuff. And it's just like, just watching everyone kind of talk about all these things like, oh, wow, you have to kind of see a little bit of humor in that. Because it's just like really like I roll. We always knew that people across the road, if they saw a black guy in a hoodie, that's been known. Is that a surprise to you, like now? And yeah, I think also humor is something that is healing to you. So there's quite a lot of really fascinating black comedians, for example, who talk about racism. And yeah, it's one of the ways that people try and cope through like comedy and through arts and things like that, which is beautiful in its own way. Who would you recommend? Is there anyone that you'd recommend? Like, you know, because I've seen all the lists of like, you know, read this book, read that book, and there's loads of worthy stuff there. But like, if I just want to laugh, you know, and enjoy some kind of black humor, literally, metaphorically, like anyone you'd recommend. I'm actually looking at my bookshelf right now. Maybe actually, I really like this book, so it's called My Sister, the Serial Killer. So I think actually a lot of the conversations around race is just talking about racism and trauma. But I think we need to like have a bit of a focus on like black joy and happiness and fun and humor as well as part of that. So this book is called My Sister, the Serial Killer. Okay. Oink and Breathway, which is, yeah, a really, really funny book I recommend. It doesn't sound like it's going to be funny, but it's really funny. I just think it's just, I'm really into like crime and crime investigations and things like that. And it's just a really funny take on, yeah, it sounds really dark, doesn't it? It does sound dark, but if you read it, you'll get what I mean in terms of the humor. I'm going to take out that challenge. I'm going to read that book. I'm going to feed back how hilarious it is. Very short and easy to read. You can probably read it in a day. I am literate, you know. No, I mean, no, I just feel it's so short, like, I don't really read like widely. I just love the way that you had to go, it's short. I mean, I like it. I can read, I can read. I can see you from your bookshelf. Yeah, you read and then I put my books in colour order. And you write them as well. Do you sometimes write them? Yeah, I do. Do you feel a lot of pressure right now? It is this moment in time. It feels really important. Everyone wants to talk to you about race. I have to say, because I was thinking when I was setting up my podcast, I'm reaching out to loads of different people of interest within my network about loads of different topics. And I almost didn't ask you something around race because I just wanted to talk to you. I haven't talked to you for ages. This is quite an elaborate excuse to have a conversation. But I almost didn't ask you about race because I thought, do you know what? I bet everyone's talking to you about that all the time you must be sick of it. But then I looked at the profile and it is like the most prominent things I thought, well, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I did like, you know, when the kind of George Floyd incident and stuff happened right away, there just seems like actually there was a lot of like people reaching out to check in and stuff. But even that I just felt a bit overwhelmed and I felt like, oh no, people are just going to think I'm rude because I'm taking ages to reply. But I just need a bit of like time to myself to like process things too. And because I have family in Minneapolis actually who lived there too. So that was just like really like scary. But yeah, I think what I've come to kind of realise is that, you know, there's an opportunity to really like challenge and hold people and systems to account through this. So it's like, okay, now you're talking about race and, you know, let's have a really serious and challenging conversation about it and, you know, what are you going to do about it and take away from it. And there's also the power to like say no to things request. So I have said no to like some people as well because it's just emotionally draining for me. So I have to protect my mental health first. And if you're going to do it, you know, have these conversations in like a really kind of meaningful way, not like, oh, you know, we don't really have anyone black on our website and we haven't talked to anyone black about this issue. Can we chat to you, but like really have a sustainable approach around how you will increase kind of representation and stuff. I think it's really important. Because also, like, I'm not being funny. You're great, but you're not like all black people everywhere, are you? No. Can I speak for your people? No. What's that about? Yeah, no, no, no. Definitely not. And I think, yeah, no, no. Again, through like Charity So White, we set ourselves up some principles, our 3-H principles, which is like around... Love alliteration, you guys. We do, don't we? Honesty, humility and hope. So again, it's like honesty, just having and recognising it. Humility in that we don't all have the answers to these things and hope that there's hope that things can change. And, you know, I've kind of taken that into my work as well around these issues. That's a great, that's great. I think that's not just about race, that's about everything, isn't it? Honesty, humility and hope. And I think, yeah, definitely within the mental health sector, I think that's really important. And as we're thinking about things like the, you know, next stage of the pandemic and that kind of thing is kids are returning to school. Like, I think, yeah, again, honesty, humility and hope. I like it. Do you think any of those H's is harder than the other? Hope, probably. Because I feel like, oh, we should have been, you know, I mean, my parents would have thought, oh, yeah, there would have been so much more progress around race for my generation. And it's like, no, I'm talking about it now. And I just, if I ever had children in the future, I would have wanted them to be like leading and talking about these conversations because it just really shouldn't be a thing in our society. But yeah, that's why it's so important for us to really address it from a structural and institutional level, because that kind of seeps into all sorts of areas in our society. So yeah, I would say hope is the most challenging property sometimes. That's hard. And that's hard. But it's kind of challenging to hear that that's the hardest one, because it's the one that you'd hope that you would be able to really grab hold of. We should talk more like outside of this about if there's anything that I can do to support what you're doing is charity and kind of help with this agenda. I've got a really good and really engaged audience who generally just care about people, like, regardless of, you know, what might make us the same or different or whatever. So we should think about that. What would you, you know, in terms of a kind of final thought, what's the thought you'd like to leave people with? What do you want to close with? I guess I think for me, you know, we always talk about my inequalities and stuff, but I do really believe that if we get things and society and systems right where people who face the most inequalities can thrive, we will get right for the majority of people. If we just really prioritized getting that right, nobody will have any kind of sort of like, you know, you wouldn't see a disproportionate impact of COVID and one specific group because people would have all had sort of access to health checks and stuff like that in a more kind of equitable way. And so I would say, yeah, that for me is that if we can all come behind the idea that there are really marginalized groups within our society that if we just, you know, really recognize and admit it that they face huge challenges and are overlooked within our society. And we really take concerted action to get things right and better for them. Then I think we will just have a really healthy and thriving society and communities. And that will be my one wish.