Our commitment to anti-racism: A journey of learning & growth

While Student Minds has always been committed to being an inclusive employer, in 2020 we set an ambition to be a truly anti-racist organisation. This work is not easy, it requires ongoing effort, courage and a willingness to confront uncomfortable truths. But we are dedicated. We hope by sharing our story we can motivate others across the charity sector to recognise the role organisations can play to foster inclusive and diverse communities.

Organisational growth 

At the beginning, there was a ‘fear of doing things wrong’ because we didn't dedicate enough time and resources. However, in 2020, we saw a shift. We could see the difficulties in the sector to address intersectionality within student communities, and like many, faced our own challenges to ensure staff could thrive, heavily influenced by campaigns like #CharitySoWhite. We could no longer make excuses for the lack of progress and realised we just had to try. Rather than trying to simply put plasters on our problems, we needed a strategy in place to see radical and sustained culture change at Student Minds.

Our initial approach

We started talking publicly about our commitment, including our public response to the Sewell report in 2021. We focused internally, interrogating our communications and recruitment of staff and volunteers. We looked at our programmes, including our University Mental Health Charter, calling on our Programme Member universities to consider intersectionality in all areas of teaching and learning. We started having Equality, Diversity & Inclusion conversations as a team.

As a predominately white organisation, we struggled to know what our role could be for fear of recreating inequalities or acting like a ‘saviour’. When our first anti-racism task group was set up in 2022 only 2 members out of 8 were from a racialised background. The progress was limited as we still didn’t have the relevant expertise or collective view. However it was important that we tried and didn’t shy away from making mistakes. All organisations need to start somewhere, and it will always be imperfect but intention is paramount. 

During these challenging early stages, it was authentic leadership from all parts of the organisation that kept us engaged. Our CEO, Rosie, was personally invested in the work and sponsored it from the start. Krishna Lad, our previous Design and Digital Manager worked tirelessly at the start and Aneeska Sohal, our current Anti Racism Council (ARC) Trustee representative, provided Rosie with the necessary strategic steer and mentorship. Our Communications team were pioneers who kept us motivated. Too many individuals to name drew on their lived experiences and really pushed us to be critical about the way we operate. We recognise that we did not have the best structures in place to help staff and volunteers who were supporting this work outside of their usual responsibilities, and know this could have had a negative impact, and we have learned from this. We want to thank all of those who have now moved on from the organisation, as without your initial support we would not have been able to start this progress.

Meaningful co-creation

The reality was we needed financial investment to begin authentic collaboration. When developing Student Space and our research, we partnered with organisations led by racialised communities such as Black People Talk, Taraki and Muslim Youth Helpline to offer tailored support to students during the Covid-19 pandemic. We were able to work with an external consultant, Steve Gilbert, who provided guidance and training for the team and helped us to understand our purpose and set up sustainable strategies for the future. We recruited a steering group of Black students to develop an online content package for Black students, led by Colourful Minds and sector expert Andy Owusu. This was incredibly successful for us to be able to provide support for Black students using direct lived experiences, and as we were still struggling to know how we could support Black students in a way that felt meaningful and authentic, it helped us to better define what we could do to meaningfully support more students from racialised communities.

However we spent a lot longer than we expected in the planning stage of this work, and by the beginning of 2024, there was frustration and a call from our stakeholders to be bolder.

Anti Racism Council ​

We set up an Anti-Racism Council (ARC) who hold us to account and support us to develop a clear vision at Student Minds.  Reflections from our ARC members have highlighted that we have fallen short of our original expectations, in recent meetings they’ve emphasised that:

1. We need to ensure our anti-racism work is sustainable and better tied to our long-term strategy as an organisation. They were keen that we don’t fall into the trap of making temporary commitments, and should focus on building trust within racialised communities. 
2. We must recognise our individual roles as staff at Student Minds ensuring we are culturally competent and clear of our responsibility to be proactive and engaged in the vision. Alongside this, we must recognise our organisational responsibility to model this within our values and how we work with others and extend appropriate influence to our stakeholders.

We are incredibly grateful to the incredible experts within our ARC who continue to challenge us as we develop this work. With financial investment, a leadership team fully behind our ambitions and a staff team eager to deal with the messiness of this change, we feel confident that we can live up to the expectations of our ARC. ​

Next steps

We are now ready to build on our positive foundations to move to a place of action as an organisation. Part of this commitment involves our public declaration of our initial commitments as an organisation before our action plan is launched.

CEO (Organisational Sponsor) commitment

The CEO commits to consistently and publicly advocating for anti-racist practices within the organisation and wider sector. They commit to regular communications, holding themselves accountable to anti-racist values and ensuring that people and financial investments are long-term commitments. They will provide a yearly update on the progress. 

ARC commitment

The Anti Racism Council commits to
1) monitoring the organisation’s progress on anti-racism initiatives, holding the organisation accountable to its commitments, and not being afraid to challenge failures.
2) developing and publishing an action plan identifying our multi-year plan, complementing our existing 10-year strategy.

Student Minds staff and Trustee commitment

Staff and Trustees commit to acting fairly and compassionately, embracing Student Minds' values, and working inclusively. This includes treating others with respect and dignity, continuously learning and unlearning, holding each other accountable for EDI commitments, and challenging actions that undermine such commitments, or the charity's values.

At Student Minds, our role is twofold. We have a responsibility to ensure not only our staff, but our Trainer/Assessor networks, our partners and supporters, fundraisers, freelancers, volunteers, consultants and all other stakeholders have the ability to truly thrive working with us. They must have the investment, space and permission to be unapologetic, to challenge us, and to help us shape a better Student Minds.

We then have a role to play to raise awareness and identify solutions for health inequalities that racialised students and staff face. We know we can support this work and welcome further external collaborations with ARC to continue to champion this across the sector. 

Being anti-racist means a commitment towards centering racial justice at the heart of the organisation. Being anti-racist requires a complete shift in how we work with communities while acknowledging our positions in a white supremacist system. We know we must begin with individual action, whilst recognising that only structural change can address inequalities. This work must move beyond a one-off project, and we must embed it into our ethos. We know change is needed, and it can’t just be seen, it has to be felt to be done.

We will continue to persist and dream bigger for Student Minds and for the communities, we aim to support to ensure that no student is held back by their mental health.

Timeline of events