Meningitis Now’s vision is of a future where no-one in the UK loses their life to meningitis and everyone affected gets the support they need to rebuild their lives. We champion ourselves as a charity for everyone. In order to realise this, we strive to be more inclusive, diverse and equitable.
In December 2023, we established new Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Steering and Working Groups to help us focus and prioritise our EDI values and plans. And we have created this new webpage, so that we can share information with our supporters about what we’re doing under these plans. We are hopeful that this transparency will be the catalyst for positive inclusive change both within the charity and outside in the wider world.
We aim to be reflective and considered in our approach to embracing equity, diversity and inclusion. We are actively committed to fostering an inclusive culture. We encourage and value difference, recognising that people’s lived experience and backgrounds bring valuable insights and enhance the way we work. We acknowledge that we are not perfect and ‘may not always get things right’. But we are committed to learning and doing better. By being upfront and acknowledging this, we hope we are being the change we (and many of our supporters) wish to see.
How Meningitis Now is taking action:
- Leadership and Accountability
We have an appointed EDI Lead (Sophia Lanciano) and established a Steering Group, which includes our CEO (Tom Nutt) and key staff representatives including our HR Manager (Laura Smith). Our EDI action plan, focusing on key areas of improvement, holds us accountable to targets and the timelines. We are actively listening to the Meningitis Now community and striving for positive change. In our Operational Plan for 2024-25, we have an aim ‘to be a charity for everyone, building a more diverse and inclusive Meningitis Now’.
- Staff training, learning and development
In 2024 we have completed all-staff training with a leading EDI trainer and facilitator. We have undertaken various training sessions focusing on unconscious bias and neurodiversity in the workplace to name a few. We also have a catalogue of e-learning courses on our staff training system that we add to regularly to empower our team with knowledge, confidence and understanding.
- EDI Working Group Space
Established December 2023, the Working Group operates as a ‘safe’, regular meeting space for staff members to speak out, listen, learn, promote good practice, and (if necessary) to challenge something they feel is wrong. Things that are discussed in this group are passed to our EDI Steering Group to discuss further and implement action.
- Making our communications more accessible and inclusive
We are adjusting all our digital and physical materials to be more accessible and inclusive. We have introduced a new accessibility tool on our website for people and the different ways in which they access information best.
- Representation and image diversity
We are focussing on being more considered, consistent and clear with the words and messages we use to talk about meningitis, as well as the images we use. We highlight, for example, how the meningitis rash can look different on black and brown skin tones. We are diversifying our library of images of the meningitis rash on different skin tones by working with our peers and collaborating with a leading study at the University of Bristol focusing on image diversity. We recognise our visuals don't authentically represent our diverse community. This is why improving our image diversity used across all media channels and communications is one of our focuses.
- Transforming our hiring process and diversity monitoring forms
We have anonymised our applications process. We now share interview questions in advance. As EDI is an important aspect of all we do at Meningitis Now, we ensure it is discussed at interviews.
- We are forming an official EDI Strategy
We are undergoing a period of learning and reflection. We look to gather information, put in place a clear strategy to hold ourselves to account and create an action plan of how we want to prioritise this initiative throughout the charity.