ADCS President John Pearce said:

“Supporting efforts to improve diversity across local authority children’s services remains a key priority for ADCS; we need a diverse workforce if we are to understand and meet the needs of the communities we serve. As an Association, we are committed to ensuring that ADCS is an inclusive and diverse organisation and we are actively creating the environment where the ADCS Board and policy committee membership is also representative.

“To develop an understanding of our membership and how representative it is, we undertake an annual survey of all ADCS members to gather information on ethnicity and wider protected characteristics. Whilst data alone will not solve many of the systemic issues that act as a barrier to diversity and inclusion, we hope that this information will help support discussions about succession planning, workforce development and ensuring equality and equity of opportunities, both locally and nationally. More recently, ADCS has set-up a diversity and inclusion working group to better understand our role in this space and ensure that issues around diversity, equity and inclusion are woven throughout the work that we do.

“The principles of diversity, equity and inclusion are fundamental to all areas of our work and we are committed to highlighting issues of disproportionality, discrimination and systemic barriers that limit opportunity where they exist. ADCS is also committed to engaging with partners who are leading on this work across children’s services, such as The Staff College which delivers the BALI Programme and Skills for Care regarding its work in bringing forward the WRES for social care, along with those partners who have a broader lens across local government such as the LGA and Solace.”

 

ENDS