Rethinking EDI at Anna Freud

I am Charli, Head of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) at Anna Freud.

I led the development of Anna Freud’s first formal EDI Strategy which we launched just six months into my tenure, in September 2022.

We’re now almost at the half-way point of this four-year strategy and I wanted to take the opportunity to tell you a bit more about why I do this work, and to share some of our learning from when setting our EDI objectives.

Being successful in our EDI efforts has been about enabling our colleagues to be seen, heard and understood for who they are and what they believe in. But it’s also been about finding the time, space and learning opportunities to better understand each other and better tackle the inherent barriers faced by the communities we come from, work with or seek to reach.

Download our EDI strategy in full or read on to find out more about the me and our strategy development process.

A bit about me

People are often reluctant to share their personal experiences at work.

However, when I’ve struggled as a young, full-time working single-parent, those colleagues who did share their story - or who were generous with their time and support - were the inspiration that kept me going. In this way, I learnt to dream bigger about what could be possible for people like me.

Now, whether working with young people, or with board members, I emphasise that ‘your story is not your own’ because we don’t know who we might encourage without realising. A little bit of courage - or sometimes quite a lot - means that we become a permission-giver for others to take up space, too. This is so important in creating a culture where we can all belong and helping us to be in a better place to connect and have an impact on the communities we seek to serve.

We are often asked to label our identities and experience with the lens of EDI via a ‘tick’ box, but we know our lives and identities are so much more complex than that.

For example, I often describe myself as an oxymoron. I recognise that I hold and have been in privileged and non-privileged spaces. I got a good education that helped me to be the first generation in my family to go to university. But I also grew up surrounded by family struggles with money, addiction and mental health. Today, I hold a good position in a well-respected organisation, yet I face continued challenges

My place in society isn’t a ‘single issue’ as it can often be mirrored in diversity monitoring forms. I have at times fallen through the cracks, as do so many in our society facing similar or more complex barriers. This is the root of my determination, to challenge the status quo and create a better future for my son.

Anna Freud’s own vision is of a world where all children and young people are able to achieve their full potential. A world in which they and their families get support that is designed with their input, available at the right time, and meets their needs, so that they can develop their emotional and mental health.

Anna Freud’s EDI journey and process

In May 2020, following the murder of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement, was an important moment for Anna Freud to reflect on its commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion. Learning that its values were not matched by its actions, it knew it had to do better in actively supporting all communities who had experienced discrimination, exclusion and violence.

Kick-starting Anna Freud’s formal EDI journey began with asking the difficult questions about where the organisation was and where it wanted to be. It heard and learnt from the often-uncomfortable answers. It knew this starting point was key to creating meaningful change.

It wasn’t hard to find some amazing work happening across Anna Freud when I arrived in February 2022. But it was clear there wasn’t a shared understanding of what we wanted to achieve for our organisation or how we would work together to get there, we needed to be thinking differently. Key to strengthening our work overall was bolstering our accountability structures and finding ways to embed EDI as part of our ‘business as usual’.

Another key part of the strategy process was to agree and define our shared language, and communications approach: Who did we want to speak to and how; what were our data collection ambitions, how were we going to build our knowledge and share it.

Finally, for me it was important for us to ensure that our strategy was truly owned by all of us at Anna Freud – from our Board to our young and parent champions and every role in between.

The strategy and our next steps

After much discussion and consultation, across the whole organisation, we devised four clear objectives and ambitions that would be the foundations of our first formal EDI strategy: Representation, Inclusion and belonging, Continuous Learning and Community Wellbeing.

See these in full here.

In September, we will be two years into our strategic efforts to embed EDI across our work. It will be our moment to take stock of how we’re doing and iterate our plans where necessary by continuing to ask those difficult questions.

We know change is not linear, comfortable or always evident, but I hope in our two-year report we’ll see some key shifts in core fundamentals such as our communications and training, as well as having more visible and consistent data. We have made some significant shifts in this area that will help us to understand the demographics of the professionals that we reach with our training for example, making our offer more accessible. We know there is still lots to do and learn but I’m excited that our EDI work will help us achieve our goal of a more equitable, inclusive and diverse community.

To learn more about our strategic ambitions for our EDI work and plans read our strategy in full and look out for two-year progress report in the Autumn to see how we’re doing.

You can also get in touch with me directly.