Equality Aim 4
Community relations: tackling discrimination and celebrating diversity
We will celebrate the diversity of our residents through education and cultural awareness. We will support our communities to build positive relationships with each other.
Building strong community relationships is essential for fostering an inclusive and harmonious borough. The borough is home to range of different cultural institutions which create opportunities to learn about and celebrate diversity. It is also home to a wide range of communities celebrating their heritage through food, art and cultural events.
By building understanding and good relations among all our residents, we can ensure everyone feels valued and included. Residents' felt this work could be extended to include older people and other diverse groups. Young people were keen that equality, diversity and inclusion be supported in schools and for more cross-cultural community celebration events for all.
"Diversity training should start in Year 7."
"Expand the target to include seniors, a range of ethnic groups, and gay community."
Achievements to date
Our work to support our communities, includes:
- supporting and managing the Faith Partnership, which brings together local religious institutions to support with greater community cohesion. Recognising the critical role of the communities in the aftermath of the Grenfell tragedy, the partnership is essential to the council in preparing for emergencies
- ongoing support for the famous Notting Hill Carnival. The carnival has a crucial role in bringing together all communities to celebrate and learn about African Caribbean culture. We play an increasing role in ensuring residents are involved in the planning of the carnival
- reviewing our service users through data gathering and analysis, especially for our children’s services. We want to:
- better understand and target support services to communities that need them the most
- address unequal representation across services
- ongoing delivery of arts grants awarded to local artists who celebrate the community and culture of the borough
- supported Afghan refugee families to settle in the borough:
- supporting them to access school places
- providing training for young people
- holding cooking sessions
- providing opportunities to improve their English
- our libraries provide a range of books for schools and residents representing and celebrating the diversity and history of all our communities
Our targeted actions
Action 14
Deliver equality for children in Early Years, schools and further education who face the greatest disadvantage and challenge to achieving their potential, through:
- an inclusion toolkit, aligned with the revised Ofsted inspection framework. This will enable education colleagues to reflect on and respond to the needs of disadvantaged children aged 0-19
- supporting education colleagues to celebrate diversity and inclusion to prepare children for the next stage of development
Progress measures
Develop and produce an accredited inclusion toolkit. The pilot roll-out of the toolkit will take place in September 2025, with full rollout from September 2026.
Monitor the changes in students' knowledge and attitudes towards celebrating diversity.