EQUESTRIAN CAREERS & EDUCATION
DEVELOPING MORE
DIVERSITY AND INCLUSIVITY
T
he Royal College of better understand barriers to Veterinary Surgeons veterinary professions; and (RCVS) has published its working with organisations that Diversity & Inclusion Group support applications from (DIG) Strategy, setting out individuals of diverse how it will work to help create backgrounds. veterinary professions where Retention and support within everyone can flourish and vet and VN education: updating which have no place for veterinary school standards to discrimination. reflect diversity and inclusion The Strategy takes a holistic aspirations; implementing approach and its six worksuggestions made during recent streams consider how the RCVS the RCVS and Veterinary Schools and other organisations that Council Roundtable for Black, form the membership of the DIG Asian and Minority Ethnic can work to improve diversity (BAME) veterinary students and and inclusion holding a within the similar event for veterinary “...If we are losing BAME student professions at veterinary colleagues to all stages – nurses; and from school-age discrimination or just developing clear children who not attracting people reporting may be systems and from diverse considering a support for backgrounds in the first those who career in the veterinary place because they suffer from professions, to think it’s ‘not for people discrimination engendering during extrapositive culture like them’, then we are mural studies change for (EMS). losing out as a those already in Recruitment profession...” the professions. within the The six strategic profession: work-streams, with examples of encouraging veterinary associated activities within each, organisations and workplaces to are: take up recruitment awards/ Recruitment to veterinary/ standards eg Stonewall, Race at veterinary nurse education and Work, and Disability Confident; training: developing case helping employers understand studies, ambassadors and the business, moral and societal careers materials for school-age case for diversity and inclusion; children from all backgrounds; and, working with employers to commissioning research to develop a toolkit to support
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better recruitment practices and encourage people to call out poor examples. Retention and support within the professions: strengthening standards regarding staff support within the Practice Standards Scheme; encouraging members of the veterinary team to attend diversity and inclusion training; producing materials that support difficult conversations; and, strengthening the RCVS Code of Professional Conduct to enable more confident reporting of poor behaviours. Organisational policies and procedures: RCVS and other organisations within the DIG ensuring their policies promote and support diversity and inclusion; developing a toolkit to better support in-house conversations around diversity; and encouraging veterinary organisations to have regular discussions around diversity and inclusion and visible statements of intent. Culture change: improving the diversity of governance/ leadership within the veterinary professions; ensuring diversity and inclusion is included in agendas at events, within CPD programmes etc; and enabling organisations to have, via the RCVS Diversity and Inclusion Group, a safe space to discuss progress and identify where they may need further help and guidance. The RCVS Diversity and
Inclusion Group includes representation from the Association of Veterinary Students (AVS), British Veterinary Association (BVA), the British Veterinary Ethnicity & Diversity Society (BVEDS), the British Veterinary LGBT+ Society, the British Veterinary Nursing Association (BVNA), the Major Employers Group, the Society of Practising Veterinary Surgeons (SPVS) and the Veterinary Schools Council (VSC) and will be responsible for monitoring and evaluating progress within the six workstreams on an ongoing basis. Dr Niall Connell, Senior VicePresident of the RCVS and Chair of the Diversity & Inclusion Group, said: “I’ve always been of the opinion that making the veterinary professions more diverse and reflective of British society at large, as well as protecting fellow professionals from discrimination, isn’t just a moral issue, but one that actually improves the quality of the profession and the outcomes we are delivering for our clients and patients. “If we are losing colleagues to discrimination or just not attracting people from diverse backgrounds in the first place because they think it’s ‘not for people like them’, then we are losing out as a profession, and if we aren’t drawing on a diverse range of backgrounds, experiences, and attitudes in our work, then we are also potentially doing a disservice to our patients and clients.” www.rcvs.org.uk/diversity
