Excellence in Diversity Awards

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  • 2015 EiDA Nominee – Angela Murphy

    Described as the heart and soul of Tomorrow’s Women Wirral, Angela Murphy has showcased true innovation to transform the charity into a consistent and effective success. This extraordinary individual has invested all of her energy into the women’s only organisation that is committed to the reduction of female imprisonment and offending, and provides life changing support to women who want to make positive changes. With 90+ visits per day from women across Merseyside, Angela works endlessly to secure funding for the centre and to ensure a safe place is provided to vulnerable women to expand their skills, flourish and become a part of a community. Through Angela’s determination, TWW now have 4 staff members and 30 dedicated volunteers and mentors. The changes Angela has made to the local community and challenging stigma are phenomenal, she is a true inspiration and well deserving of being recognised for all her efforts in supporting women within the criminal justice system, those on the periphery and all women of Wirral.

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  • 2015 EiDA Nominee – Liverpool Mutual Homes

    Liverpool Mutual Homes manages 15,000 homes in the city and have 17,600 customers. Their exceptional equality, diversity and inclusion strategy “People Matter” showcases their commitment to continuous improvement and to providing excellent services that recognise people’s differences and embrace their various needs. LMH invest in learning, training and development to help staff achieve and excel, and have long term strategies in place to create a more diverse and inclusive workforce. Their equality and diversity staff group ‘Your Voice’ is representative of the whole organisation and has 15 members, 7 of which are ‘diversity champions’. These remarkable champions assist in embedding inclusion throughout the organisation by promoting their own relevant protected characteristic and promoting activities and events. LMH have a thorough equality and diversity training programme consisting of induction sessions, handbook training sessions, e-learning training, regular ‘Did You Know’ email communications and learning sessions.

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  • Damian Kitson

    Damian is Head of Record to Report at Asda, and is responsible for the recording of all financial accounting transactions across all cost areas within Asda and manages a 13 strong team of accountants. Beyond his core, role Damian seeks out opportunities to further develop an inclusive workplace. He is the chair of Asda’s Disability Network, where his current focus is to help remove the public stigma of mental health, and is an active member of the Gender Steering Group, personally challenging himself and others to be fair in creating opportunities for both men and women. In addition, Damian is a Home Office Colleague Voice representative and a Culture Catalyst for the business, using his widening networks to impact wider teams, radiating the inclusion agenda around the company. At work he is known for his inventive ways of inspiring teams and has deservedly been recognised as “Finance colleague of the year”. Damian optimises an ‘Employee of the Year’ and this is illustrated through a fantastic array of endorsements.

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  • 2015 EiDA Nominee – Ricky Somal

    In December 2014, Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust was cited in a national report by NHS Providers. This was in recognition of the Equality Standard toolkit designed by Ricky Somal, E&D Lead and a focused piece of work that has resulted in a 50% reduction in BME staff disciplinarians. Ricky has transformed the diversity and inclusion agenda at Southern Health with the design of an innovative 5-point E&D Integration Plan, and from March 2014 took lead of equality and diversity at Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust in conjunction to his current role. This programme of work and associated patient and workforce outcomes has been recognized through national awards. Ricky designed and delivered Equality and Diversity Training which was completed by over 4,000 staff in 12 months. ‘Diversity Moments’ is a brand new initiative designed by Ricky to improve workforce diversity and inclusion. Diversity Moments is a series of focused positive action projects and interactive web-based learning vignettes to improve understanding of inclusion.

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  • HSBC Balance Network

    HSBC’s Balance network launched in October 2010 and was set up to help drive HSBC’s diversity & inclusion aim to increase senior female representation. Balance’s vision is to support the recruitment, development, advancement and engagement of a gender-balanced workforce within HSBC. The network now has 2,073 members in the UK and over 23 branches worldwide. Balance is different. When defining and designing Balance and how it was intended to make a difference, it was strongly felt that traditional “women’s networks” were not necessarily the right approach to impact gender diversity, and that to make a difference, both men and women had to be included from the start. Balance’s pioneering approach set out to impact gender diversity, appealing to and including both men and women equally. This has had the effect of generating interest and support from key groups of stakeholders that are often disenfranchised with a traditional women’s network. The impact and rapid growth of this astonishing network deserves to be applauded.

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  • Cam Kinsella

    Diversity, equality & inclusion for Cam isn’t just her ‘job’, it’s her whole world. Removing inequalities is Cam’s greatest passion and this is evident through her extraordinary achievements over the past 8 years across the industry. Cam transformed Golden Gates Housing Trust from an organisation with no systems in place to promote, monitor or support equality, into a leader within the sector; becoming the first winner of the DNA award and the only organisation still to date to have received 10 distinctions. Amongst Cam’s many outstanding initiatives include setting up GGHT as a hate crime reporting centre which saw reporting rise from 1 per quarter to 15. Additionally, Cam was a key partner in the ‘Keep Warm Keep Well’ Campaign which targeted older customers with winter warm bags. Cam recently brought her exceptional initiatives to Merlin Housing, and has already created plans to drive the organisation to excellence. Cam’s incredible commitment is rapidly evolving housing organisations to become truly inclusive employers.

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  • 2015 EiDA Nominee – Reverend John Butcher

    For the last 48 years, Reverend John Butcher has championed harmony, equality and diversity with people from all backgrounds, ages, cultures, beliefs and nationalities. He developed the annual Rotherham Show for young people to educate them on social awareness through entertainment and drama. John also trained a multi-cultural team to form ‘Cosmo Club’; creating harmony among children from all backgrounds. The club had a significant impact on the Hackney community, and John was able to engage local businesses and professional bodies in providing funding and resources; An outstanding £40,000 was also raised each year from charitable trusts. Due to the success of Cosmo Club John was not only invited and welcomed into other Boroughs, but also nationally and internationally. John’s work in inclusion was raised to a new level with his links with West Midlands Police as a volunteer Police Chaplain and as the Force Lead Chaplain. His passion has seen the development of a 40 strong West Midlands Police Multi Faith Chaplaincy Team.

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  • 2015 EiDA Nominee – The University of Manchester

    The University of Manchester is committed to creating an environment where diversity is celebrated and everyone is treated fairly. They have a genuine commitment to equality of opportunity for their staff and students, and are proud to employ a workforce that reflects the diverse community they serve. Specialist staff networks, forums, training and events are just some of the ways in which the university keep their community connected and engaged with diversity issues. Top quality evidence showcased a real understanding from the University of the importance of incorporating all aspects of diversity. The University demonstrated incredible promotion of all equality strands and protected characteristics, and presented credible information which highlights the great lengths they are going to, to be fully inclusive. The University is also addressing youth unemployment through their leadership of The Works – an innovative employment and training initiative at the heart of our local communities in Moss Side and Ardwick.

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  • 2015 EiDA Nominee – Sharon Thomas

    Sharon Thomas Riverside

    With nearly 30 years experience within the housing sector, Sharon goes above and beyond her role as Community Engagement Team Leader at Riverside Housing. Her passion for diversity and inclusion shines through not only in her day job, but also her outstanding dedication to community and voluntary work. Sharon focuses all of her energy on ensuring Riverside is committed to inclusion and as chair of their BME staff group, has been fundamental in promoting the group extensively to all staff, resulting in membership increasing from 30 to 100 within two years. Sharon has lead many initiatives involving the community and promoting diversity throughout the northwest including training, information sessions and away days such as Operation black vote; a partnership project with the Ministry of Justice to establish a Magistrate shadowing scheme. Sharon has developed and delivered a number of exceptional initiatives to strengthen the relationships between communities by working with schools, community centres  and housing providers.

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  • 2015 EiDA Nominee – English Federation of Disability Sport

    The English Federation of Disability Sport exists to make active lives possible and ensure that millions of disabled people can lead active lifestyles. Dedicated to disabled people in sport and physical activity, EFDS supports a wide range of organisations to include disabled people more effectively. The national charity know through much of their research that many communications could be missing a large proportion of the population because they are not accessible or appealing enough to disabled people, so they work hard to support providers with more evidence, practical support and resources. In April 2014, EFDS produced a guide to inclusive communications. Written in partnership with Big Voice Communications, it supports providers to reach a wider audience. The excellent guide has proven to be extremely successful with over 1000 downloads to date and it was also chosen by Government to be a part of their National Accessible Britain Campaign, providing advice toolkits to organisations and individuals.

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