In 2020, like a lot of UK charities, Centre for Mental Health made a public commitment to anti-racist practice in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd in the United States. While the Centre has been dedicated to tackling mental health inequality for a long time, this was the first time we had made an organisation-wide commitment explicitly to anti-racism. It came with an action plan to enable us to take action systematically to address racism and white supremacism in every aspect of our work and our organisational culture.
To help us understand how we were doing in this regard, we asked an independent consultant, Kahra Wayland-Larty to carry out a thorough review of anti-racism at Centre for Mental Health. You can read the review in full here. The review enabled us to monitor the progress we have made so far, what that means for the Centre, its staff team, trustees and partners, and where we have further to go. We’re sharing the review’s findings in the hope that it will help other organisations seeking to make similar changes to their work, their structures, their processes, and their relationships. Given the number of pledges made during 2020 and thereafter, it’s up to all of us who work for charities in the UK to stand by those promises and make them real.
The review reflected that the Centre made some good early progress on its action plan, but after an initial burst of activity it slowed down. Changes we made, for example to our recruitment processes, helped us to create a more equitable framework for staff and other roles, but it can’t end there. We needed to think about how we can create a good working environment where anti-racist values and practice are embedded. The emotional labour of tackling racism cannot be left to colleagues from racialised communities: it’s got to be a shared endeavour, in which there are opportunities for us all and in which we all have a role.
The review also helped us to see how our commitment to anti-racism cannot exist in isolation. We can support and contribute to the work of others, to a wider movement seeking liberation from white supremacy culture and its many manifestations. Being part of something bigger than ourselves means not assuming we have all the answers but listening to those who can give us insights and ideas, and whose understanding of racism and racial justice strengthens ours.
Building a culture of solidarity isn’t the work of one or two years. It takes time, it takes commitment to listening and learning when we don’t get it right, and it means being prepared to change things we (especially white people) took for granted or didn’t notice before. Every organisation, including every charity, in the UK has been affected by white supremacism. Seeing it, seeking to change it, and being willing to change the way we function to do so, is essential work, but ultimately will help us do our jobs better and have happier working lives.
We’re still learning and still have a long way to go before we can say we have placed anti-racism at the heart of everything we do. We have updated our action plan so that we can make further progress, with a clearer process for checking how we are doing that involves both staff and trustees. That includes building and supporting a talented and diverse staff team that’s equipped to tackle racism, creating a culture of solidarity that works alongside the wider racial justice movement, and having policies and procedures that support us in this endeavour.
Anti-racism is an ongoing effort that asks us to dismantle racist structures and processes and put in place more equitable ways of working and being. We can’t do that on our own. Charitable funders, commissioners and regulators all have a part to play in making this a shared endeavour that’s root and branch, not superficial or short-lived. We can all do our part to end white supremacism and the inequities and injustices it engenders.
