Equality, Diversity and Inclusion at Back Up

At Back Up, we are committed to creating a culture that is diverse and inclusive. We want Back Up to be a place where everyone feels welcome.

Embracing equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI)

One of our core values is to build inclusive communities. We want to ensure our everyday work practices and individual behaviours enable us to have a workforce and volunteer base which is reflective of the population that we serve.

Lived experience is central to our approach. The majority of our services team have lived experience of spinal cord injury and we are led by people affected by spinal cord injury. The majority of our board of trustees either have a spinal cord injury or have a family member with a spinal cord injury.

We have an Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Policy and a Diversity and Inclusion group that drives forward initiatives to remove barriers to people engaging with Back Up.

Most importantly we are taking action.

Creating a diverse and inclusive culture at Back Up

• We have committed to ensuring that we tell the stories of a diverse range of experiences
• We have reviewed our recruitment practices to remove barriers and encourage applications from underrepresented groups
• We ask our team every year what more we can do to make them feel included and crucially act on feedback
• We are targetting outreach to groups that we know are under-represented
• We use translation services to support people who do not have English as a first language
• We commit to being a Disability Confident Employer, helping to positively change attitudes, behaviours and cultures towards the employment of disabled people.
• We recognise that individuals’ experiences differ. We are committed to listening to our staff team, volunteers and people who use our services about what matters to them

Although we have made some positive changes, we know there is still a lot more work to do.

We will continue to work towards achieving our vision of creating a world where people with spinal cord injury can reach their full potential.