Innovation, Aspiration and Best Practice

Equality Scheme 2018-2022 OBJECTIVE 2: Be innovative, aspirational and meet best practice

Understand where our strengths lie and help others by sharing our knowledge and expertise Identify where we have areas of improvement and develop ways forward to address these

During 2019/20 we:

Housing Diversity Network Accreditation

Retained our Housing Diversity Network (HDN) accreditation for excellence in equality and diversity following our three-yearly re-accreditation assessment, with eight distinctions for good practice (an increase from the five distinctions we were awarded in 2016);

London Diversity Group

Continued to attend the London Diversity Group, which is supported by HDN, to share knowledge and expertise;

Stonewall Workplace Index and HouseProud Pledge

Continued to deliver the work plan that was developed in 2018/19 by using the Stonewall Workplace Index to assess our progress on LGBT equality and identify opportunities to do more, and signed up to the HouseProud pledge as a pledge pioneer (see next page);

Domestic Abuse Housing Alliance (DAHA)

Continued to deliver the work plan that was developed in 2018/19 by using the Domestic Abuse Housing Alliance (DAHA) online toolkit to assess our response to domestic abuse and identify opportunities to do more. Having amended our Health and Wellbeing Policy to support members of staff who may be experiencing domestic abuse, we are now fully meeting the commitments we made by signing up to the ‘Make a Stand’ pledge, launched in June 2018 by DAHA in partnership with the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) and Women’s Aid, to show our commitment to people experiencing domestic abuse. For further information please see the domestic abuse page on our website.

Disability Confident Employer

Retained our Disability Confident Employer Status and signed up as members of Purple to support our work on disability.

We have signed the HouseProud Pledge to demonstrate our commitment to LGBTQ+ equality and support and have therefore pledged to make sure that LGBTQ+ residents can have input at executive / strategic level, increase LGBTQ+ visibility, and provide staff training to improve understanding of LGBTQ+ lives. If you want to get involved in any way please contact the Resident Involvement and Community Development Team (Tel. 0300 303 2500 or 01277 844242 / Email involvement@swan.org.uk). For more information about the HouseProud pledge and HouseProud’s ‘No Place Like Home’ research that led to the development of the pledge please see www.houseproud-lgbt.com.

Our ongoing commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion will enable us to deliver our Social Purpose by being a successful, innovative and growing housing organisation that continues to put our diverse residents and customers at the heart of everything we do.