National Inclusion Week 2022 runs from 26 September to 2 October

National Inclusion Week 2022 – Celebrating Inclusion and Taking Action  

National Inclusion Week 2022 will be taking place from the 26th September – 2nd October.

National Inclusion Week is a dedicated week offering the opportunity for organisations to champion and celebrate inclusion and diversity in the workplace.

This year the theme for National Inclusion Week is ‘Time to Act: The Power of Now’. It’s about organisations and individuals taking action and embedding behaviours now – living in the moment, considering our inclusive impact and how we can be even more inclusive.

The Devon Moving Together strategy sets out our belief that by working together with communities and partners, we can make movement a positive part of people’s lives, whatever their background. The whole of Active Devon is fully committed to this. One of our values is Inclusion and ‘Reduced Inequalities’ is one of our long-term strategic aims. We have a dedicated Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy and we are committed to both the Sporting Equals Charter and the Active Partnerships commitment to tackling racism and racial inequality.

Throughout our journey towards becoming more diverse and inclusive our team have been wholeheartedly embracing opportunities to learn, develop and improve. We have made a commitment for the whole team to participate in the Leading for Renewal programme from Inclusive Employers – an intensive, year-long learning and development programme designed to truly embed inclusion into the sport and physical activity sector. This is in addition to other team-wide diversity and inclusion initiatives.

All of this supports our work with communities and partners, to connect, advocate and enable people to move more, including supporting community groups and organisations across Devon who are working with priority groups to help reduce the wide inequalities in sport and physical activity. In this space we have further sharpened our focus, with Together Fund investment being prioritised towards some of our most marginalised communities.

However, we very much recognise that this is about continuous learning and there is always more we can do.

To mark National Inclusion Week, we have extended our diversity and inclusion development programme with the launch of our new Inclusion Club. A regular space where the team can discuss any books, podcasts, programmes and personal experiences that have had an impact. To get the ball rolling we have also created a diversity resource library, where colleagues can borrow and share books that inspire us to be diverse in our thinking and practice. Our hope is to widen our knowledge of inclusion, to help broaden our opinions. We will also be discussing how we can be more inclusive across our digital channels and wider communications, with the aim of creating a number of further inclusive commitments.

We are proud to be supporting National Inclusion Week and we encourage partners to join us by sharing the great work they do in Devon to help break down barriers and increase activity for inclusive groups.

Founded by Inclusive Employers, National Inclusion Week is now in its 10th year and Inclusive Employers will be hosting a series of events during the week. To join in with National Inclusion Week visit the Inclusive Employers website or to find out more click here.