Strengthening E&D

This year has seen significant change in the University of Bristol Students’ Union’s (UBU) approach to Equality and Diversity. We have:

• Commenced Investors In Diversity (IID) at Stage 2 to ensure that everything we do, plan, think and say is meaningfully grounded in an organisational awareness of how we can best ensure we engage with our members in a way that is accessible to all and, most importantly, within a true understanding of equality and diversity.
• Reviewed our HR processes and committed to make changes in the context of IID
• Reviewed our E&D policy and other governance documents in the context of complaints raised about the University’s Christian Union. A report was published and circulated to students, with recommendations (currently being implemented) for improvement. By not shying away from, and being honest about, those needed improvements, we have been able to establish with our membership that we take E&D seriously.
• Introduced a “Head Start” event for disabled students: opening ‘mainstream’ events early for them to familiarise themselves with venues/procedures and then attend alongside the wider student body.
• Introduced a fair access fund, for students with particular needs to request funding for UBU activities.
• Run training for elections candidates on how to engage under-represented groups of students
• Targeted under-represented groups of students to run as candidates in our elections and otherwise participate in our democratic processes by creating an engagement plan for each current Officer.
• Re-launched our liberation forums, providing a channel through which our Officers can hear student views, explore how best to address them and test possible solutions.
• Commissioned a photographer to produce a more diverse range of student-related stock images and profiles.

Projects & Initiatives

We have developed a number of initiatives to promote E&D this year. For example:

• An eating disorders support group, student-led but backed by a national charity (SRSH), providing a safe space to talk about recovery.
• An LGBT+ student-led support group, providing a safe space for students to chat through any questions or concerns about gender or sexual orientation.
• A disabled students network.
• A student parents’ network, and weekly student parents’ coffee morning.
• An exciting and influential mental health campaign (“Look After Your Mate”), which took issues out to students and provided multiple pathways for students to tell us their experiences of mental health issues.

As well as, in themselves, promoting E&D by creating space for students to discuss their needs and concerns with their peers, these initiatives also created an invaluable network for UBU to ensure we are up-to-speed with changing student needs as well as providing a test bed to assess where we are now and how we should and could change to ensure we truly represent all our members. All of these groups have a close relationship with our VP Welfare and Equality to ensure their feedback is fed in to business, project, campaign and departmental planning as well as the weekly strategic and operational meetings with senior managers and our Officers.

Improvements

As a direct result of these projects and initiatives, and the resulting conversations we have enjoyed with students, we have been able to:

• Successfully the University to, and then worked with them to, produce guidance on student pregnancy/paternity/adoption (both for staff and students).
• Represented student parents’ interests to the University when it considered closing the current on-campus nursery provision. The VP Welfare and Equality met with senior university management over many months and recommended that the facility be retained. The University has now confirmed it will not withdraw this facility.
• All liberation officer positions have now been filled (the first time in recent memory).
• Increased engagement with students on E&D issues has led to motions as diverse as introducing gender neutral toilets, adding a ‘+’ to our ‘LGBT’ officer role and campaigning for an additional crossing on a busy road to address the concerns of a number of disabled students, have been debated and passed through our democratic processes.
• Lobby the University to, and participate in, a review of its Disability Services.