IP Inclusive update

By Andrea Brewster OBE

Thank you to everyone who’s continued to get involved in IP Inclusive activities and events, despite the Covid-19 chaos. We know that adapting to new working arrangements hasn’t always been easy, but we hope we’ve been of help and we hope that out of this period, some really good things will emerge that will make our future working practices more inclusive and more resilient.

Bringing people together: our recent events In late April and May we broadcast two webinars with CIPA, one on support for mental health first aiders and one on managing workplace behaviour (including how to prevent, or if necessary deal with, discrimination and harassment). On 2 June, we hosted a round-table meeting about the importance of D&I in recruiting and retaining staff, where we heard from experienced IP sector recruiters about what candidates look for when deciding where to work. We plan to publish the key outcomes from that meeting, so please keep an eye on our website Resources page.

Our Women in IP and IP Futures communities, as well as the Midlands network, have also been busy: a series of “virtual coffee mornings” have proved popular opportunities to share experiences of lockdown. Frustrations, worries, but also useful tips and good-humoured anecdotes, have helped us see the positive side of our new working practices – not least the ability to get together with people all around the country without even needing to change out of your pyjamas. The themes for these events have touched on the likely longer-term effects of the lockdown; how remote working impacts on the trainee-supervisor relationship; and – to fit with the Mental Health Awareness Week theme – what “kindness” means to different people, in particular in a time of crisis. The Women in IP events involved hosts in several locations around the UK, as well as associated Dublin-based events for our IP colleagues in Ireland, whilst the IP Futures coffee morning made use of Zoom’s “breakout rooms” to allow more people to contribute to the discussions.

To mark the UN’s World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development, our IP & ME community ran a survey to explore people’s beliefs about “culture”, and how we can help others to understand different cultural perspectives. The results, documented in one of our News and Features posts, were both fascinating and inspiring.

In mid-May we also held a (virtual) get-together for our community and regional network leaders. This was a chance to exchange ideas and co-ordinate plans, including for the rescheduled joint event on diversity “allies”: see below. Huge thanks to these leaders, who are doing such great work to keep IP Inclusive alive and relevant to such a wide range of IP professionals.

Mental Health Awareness Week (18-24 May 2020) The Mental Health Awareness Week theme this year was changed from “sleep” to “kindness” to acknowledge the impact of coronavirus on people’s lives. IP Inclusive’s activities included the Midlands network coffee morning mentioned above, and social media campaigns by our North of England network, IP Ability and Women in IP, who shared thoughts about both kindness and life in lockdown on Twitter, LinkedIn and our website News and Features page.

We’ve held off repeating our mental wellbeing survey this year and instead will be supporting LawCare’s wider version which it hopes to run later in 2020: we’ll have access to IP-specific “slices” of those survey results.

Future events Please join our 22 June diversity breakfast, which of course will be an online event this year. Our guest speakers are Daniel Winterfeldt, chair of the InterLaw Diversity Forum, and diversity champion Parminder Lally from Appleyard Lees: they’ll be sharing their thoughts on allies and “intersectionality”, and how we can all work together, across diversity strands, to ensure our sector is truly inclusive.

The rescheduled event on allies and supporters will now take place on Tuesday 30 June at 3 pm, via Zoom.

We’re also hoping to revive last year’s postponed event on D&I data gathering, and to run an online meeting for business support professionals. And look out for IP Ability events focused on invisible disabilities, workplace adjustments, and issues relating to dyslexia. There’ll be more details of these, and other future opportunities, on our website Events page.

IP Inclusive is open to all IP professionals and those who work with them. For more information, visit our website, www.ipinclusive.org.uk; follow us on Twitter – @IPInclusive, @bameipinclusive, @IP_Ability, @ip_out, @WomeninIPI, @CareersInIdeas or join one of our LinkedIn® groups. And if you’re interested in getting involved, please contact contactipinclusive@gmail.com To keep abreast of everything we’re doing, join our mailing list: there’s a “Stay in touch” form on the website.