Getting off the merry go round: integration by braphumanrights

GETTING OFF THE MERRYGO-ROUND: integration and cohesion

brap is an equality and human rights

responsibilities, integration, and

charity, inspiring and leading change to

discrimination

make public, private and third sector organisations fit for the needs of a more



year we have on our ‘grown-up’

diverse society. We offer tailored,

development sessions. Going into

progressive and common sense

schools, hospitals, and anywhere else

approaches to equality training,

people meet people, our training sessions

consultancy and community engagement

help explore the grey areas in equality,

issues.

cohesion, and human rights practice. Do you know what role ‘race’ should play in

‘Getting off the Merry-Go-Round’ is part of a series of papers outlining our thinking on key areas of policy and practice. The story so far... 

in 2012 we delivered a programme

intercultural

training

100

public

voluntary

and

sector

workers. In doing so we gave them key intercultural

skills

adoption and fostering?

who are brap?

(facilitating

into schools, colleges, and Pupil Referral Units. Our ‘One Birmingham: Your Future’ project engaged 700+ young people in an innovative training course that improved their knowledge of and ability to respond to issues of rights,

attended our courses do  we’ve responded to the challenges of a ‘diverse’ society by pioneering new approaches to rightsbased equalities

the Department of Health as good practice in their National Cancer Reform

with ‘minority’ groups. We’ve worked in

between 2009 and 2011 we took our ideas

People who have

Support was recently recommended by

helped a range of organisations engage



relevant to housing?

developed on behalf of Macmillan Cancer

since its formation in 1998, brap has

housing, education, and employment

human rights are

rights based standard for cancer care brap

principles for fair engagement)

mental and public health, criminal justice,

Do you know how

practice. For example, a national human

difficult

conversations, designing inclusive services, 

don’t forget the 2000+ participants per

Strategy 

finally, we’ve conducted a number of research projects looking at interculturalism, multiculturalism, and everything in between...

Over the last few years we’ve been lucky



enough to carry out research on a range of key cohesionrelated topics. All these reports are available online: a quick Google search will throw them up. 

‘Interculturalism: a

(commissioned by the Equality and

our research

handbook for action’ (commissioned by



the Baring Foundation, 2012) 

 ‘The Religion or Belief Equality Strand in Law and Policy’ (commissioned by the British Humanist Association, 2010)

‘The Pied Piper: the BME third sector and Capacity Builders, 2009)

‘Interculturalism: A breakdown of thinking 

‘Community Cohesion and Deprivation’ (commissioned by the Commission on

Foundation, 2012)

Integration and Cohesion, 2007)

the demographics of the UK have changed



public bodies feel overwhelmed by an

a lot over the last 40 years. Approaches to

expectation that they should deliver

engagement haven’t. We are still heavily

cohesion-related outcomes. However,

reliant

there’s little appreciation of what this

‘representative’

community

engagement

people backgrounds

with

particular characteristics. Little emphasis is placed on the skills and knowledge of the

models that

engage

means in practice. Often, this means

from

particular

people

organisations stick

key findings

participating 

Diversity Forum, 2010)

UK race relations policy’ (funded by

and practice’ (commissioned by the Baring



‘Managing Competing Equality Claims’

to repeating triedand-tested, but as yet not very impactful, strategies  existing guidance in this area is poor, often blurring the lines between

public bodies usually undertake cohesion

‘community needs’ and ‘community

work without a clear idea of the impact

demands’. Little is done to balance talk of

they want to have. Rarely are there clear

‘rights’ with talk of ‘responsibilities’

answers to key questions: What change do we need? What needs to be done to achieve this? Who should help in achieving it?



staff are often afraid of ‘getting things wrong’ when working on equality issues or interacting with minority groups. Faced with this threat they sacrifice professional

autonomy for the safety of mechanical



adherence to policy or the approbation of

and voluntary workers on how to handle

community groups. There is little

competing rights claims involving faith

questioning of interventions in this field

and belief. We need to develop more nuanced frameworks for dealing with

practitioners lack a useable, common

these issues. The law can only take us so

sense framework to respond to the myriad

far – we need to develop more effective

(sometimes competing) demands and

practice that avoids conflict and helps to

expectations placed on them by minority 

and majority groups1

mediate it on the ground. This is

public policy is not responding to some of

role faith groups play in supporting local

particularly pressing given the important

the complex delivery tensions felt by

communities when public spending is

frontline workers. The need to respond is becoming more pressing as public resources become squeezed in the recession and communities become more ethnically and religiously diverse 

there is some uncertainty amongst public

equality law can put people into boxes they’d rather not be in. There is a tension between the need to offer a minimum level of protection from discrimination but also the need to be more responsive to people’s real lives and their sense of identity. When legislation dictates the design of policies and interventions it tends to diminish our potential to identify and promote a shared humanity. Policy and interventions for new arrivals often assume they are interested primarily in maintaining their culture – as opposed to discussing their equal and reasonable access to employment, education, and housing entitlements

Two examples we’ve come across: a nursery worker was asked by a parent to keep their daughter from playing outside with boys because she doesn’t do that at home and newly arrived immigrant communities requesting resources to set up a community centre because other immigrant communities have had funding in the past

tight 

there is a significant risk that the same mistakes that were made in the past will be made again. The merry-go-round of integration, cohesion and community engagement interventions will continue because we are afraid or do not know how to question their purpose and their impact. Take for example the creation of HealthWatch by the NHS/CQC. The model for local delivery of this community engagement forum across the country looks set to replicate the representative model adopted in previous LINKS arrangements (securing forum members from particular ethnic groups, often ‘usual suspects’, to represent the views of their community). How do we break the cycle?

The findings in the preceding pages have a number of implications for current integration policy. 

we need to rethink the way we design

should be given the skills necessary to participate in decision making 

principles we need to embrace to promote

services. Rather than focus on additional

cohesion – emphasising common ground,

or ‘add-on’ services designed to appeal to

increasing social mobility, encouraging

specific groups, there should be a greater

participation, tackling intolerance – and

emphasis on creating inclusive mainstream

the government’s own integration

services 

strategy.3 For these

in part, this can be achieved by facilitating dialogue people

a with about

the basic human concerns rights) 



there is a lot of crossover between the

(or they

ways forward

ideas to gain traction, though, more needs to be done to show the benefits of this postmulticultural way of thinking  the government

want upheld by services

are taking a hands-off approach to

funding should be provided to encourage

integration, arguing that ‘action is most

dialogue which can help communities

effective when it is led by the people it

identify common forms of exclusion and

most concerns’. There is a lot of truth in

need across different identities and

this. However, practitioners would

backgrounds. Decisions about which

undoubtedly benefit from the

equality interventions should be funded

identification of best practice as we

should also be based on the results of this

undergo this transitional phase. Showing

type of interaction

how people manage and resolve competing demands from different

there needs to be a shift in the way we

communities, for example, would help

engage with communities. Two points in

establish a recognised framework for

particular: (a) people should not be

decision making

engaged on the basis of their representing whole communities; (b) the success of



we’ve been discussing community

engagement shouldn’t be measured by

relations policy for over 50 years and

the number of minority groups who turn

arguably we’re no closer to defining what

up: success is whether the process of

the problem is. Policy needs to be much

engagement upholds certain key

clearer about the outcome(s) it’s trying to

principles.2 As part of this shift, people

achieve

We’ve talked elsewhere about what these principles should be. See brap (2010) Engaging

People

Communities and Local Government (2012) Creating the Conditions for Integration

brap is a think fair tank, inspiring and leading change to make public, private and third sector organisations fit for the needs of a more diverse society. brap offers tailored, progressive and common sense approaches to equality and human rights training, consultancy and community engagement issues. Registered charity number 1115990