CVS Stirling -Thriving and Connecting Communities

CVS Stirling strive to promote and mainstream equalities in all that we do. We encourage our members to browse this site for useful information which will promote equality for all.

What is Equality?

Equality Is For Everyone

Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 1 defines equality as:

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

“the prevention, elimination or regulation of discrimination between persons on grounds of sex or marital status, on racial grounds, or on grounds of disability, age, sexual orientation, language or social origin, or of other personal attributes, including beliefs or opinions, such as religious beliefs or political opinions.“ Scotland Act 1998

It’s not the “Politically Correct brigade”
It’s not about giving special preference / treatment to or promoting minority groups
It’s not just an issue for left-wingers and minority groups
It’s not about making us all the same or just about respecting diversity
It’s not just about the 6 “protected” strands which are Age, Gender, Disability, Sexual Orientation, Religion and Race.

CVS Stirling sees supporting its members to promote equalities as an important part of its overall role in serving the voluntary sector. Please feel free to use this resource and give us feedback on its usefulness as well as ideas to improve the content .

EQUALITIES RESOURCES

Equality in Accessing Information..

Making sure that the information you provide is accessible to everyone has a number of benefits for voluntary, community and social economy organisations as well as your volunteers and service users. Below is a range of resources that can be used by your organisation to help achieve this.

All of our resources are free to download from our website. However if you would like us to send information to you please contact us with your details.

Making Information Accessible

Making Emails Accessible

Making Word Documents Accessible

Making Websites Accessible

Equality in the Workplace

Below are resources for employees, employers and volunteers who want to know their rights in relation to employment and volunteering. The links provide information about your rights.

Delivering Equality and Diversity

Double Tick Scheme

Access to Work Guide

'Family Friendly' Rights

DWP Guide to Volunteering while on Benefits

Making Reasonable Adjustments at Work for Employees with Mental Health Problems Guidance

Monitoring Form Template

Sample Equal Opportunities Policy

OCG Guidance on Equality & Procurement

Equality & Human Rights

Human Rights are by definition the basic entitlements someone can expect in a civilised society. Human rights are fundamental to who we are and what we do. It is really important that organisations grasp the principles of human rights and embed them into their services.

One of the best ways to maintain human rights is to recall the FREDA principles on which the Human Rights Act is based - Fairness, Respect, Equality, Dignity and Autonomy. Applying the FREDA principles to everything that we all do will make a difference in peoples' lives.

Equality

"Nations will rise and fall, but equality remains the ideal. The universal aim is to achieve respect for the entire human race, not just the dominant few."

Carlos P Romulo

Equality Laws

Mainstreaming Equalities Checklist

Equality Impact Assessment. What is it?

An ongoing process/tool for ensuring that equality is mainstreamed, for example by:

Highlighting equality issues
Highlighting potential differential impacts of specific actions
Ensuring that everyone's need have been considered and balanced

An Equality Impact Assessment should however not be seen as an end in itself

What's Covered?

Policies/decisions
Activities
Budgets

Any activity, decision or policy which might have an impact (positive or negative) on somebody should be subject to an Equality Impact Assessment.

Ten Steps to Equality Impact Assessments

For more in-depth information on Equalities and Human Rights please access the following sites

The Equality and Human Rights Commission is charged by law with a vital mandate:

To protect individuals against discrimination, to enforce the laws on equality

http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/

Equality & Human Rights Commission

Scottish Disability Equality Forum SDEF

Deaf Blind Scotland

SCVO

Glasgow Black and Ethnic Minority Voluntary Sector Network

Glasgow Women's Voluntary Sector

Disability Alliance

West of Scotland Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Forum

Office of Public Sector Information OPSI

Equality Act 2010

The Equality Bill received Royal Assent on the 8th of April and formally became The Equality Act 2010.

It is intended that the provisions in the Act will come into force as follows:

October 2010: Main provisions.
April 2011: The integrated public sector Equality Duty, the Socio-economic Duty and dual discrimination protection.
2012: The ban on age discrimination in provision of goods, facilities, services and public functions.
2013: Private and voluntary sector gender pay transparency regulations (if required) and political parties publishing diversity data.

You can download the full Act at www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2010/pdf/ukpga_20100015_en.pdf The webpage www.equalities.gov.uk/equality_bill.aspx also has downloads for Equality Impact Assessment and simple guide to the provisions of the Act in the form of an Equality Bill Factsheet.

What's New

April 2010

Equality Act Passed

July 14th 2009

Delivering Fairness for All Conference, London

June 2009

Specific Public Sector Equality Duties Consultation Document

27/4/09

Equality Bill

This is really the one to watch as it will change the face of equality. It will hopefully streamline all equality laws and will introduce new, broader, public sector equality duties. It will also extend provisions on equal pay and procurement

Mainstreaming Equality Questions & Answers

ME TOO! Project

Outside the Box has been approached by some people from the LGBT community who have had experience of domestic abuse. They would like to see more appropriate services for people in this situation

The services that people would like to see are ones which are:

Sensitive to the circumstances of people who are in a same-sex relationship
Easy to access on a confidential basis
Meet the needs of everyone who is going through domestic abuse at the moment and work for people who have left an abusive relationship.

Other people may need support because they are worried about a friend or relative who is suffering from Domestic Abuse. We want to make sure that their needs and views are listened to as well.

We want to hear from more people who have an interest in this topic. This will let the people who want to develop more services know that their plans will benefit as many people as possible.

We are working alongside other groups who want to see better support for people who experience same-sex domestic abuse, and who are working to raise awareness about the issue.

What we are doing

The first stage is gathering information about what sorts of services people would find helpful.

There is a short survey, which you can access through the Outside the Box website. It is entirely confidential and anonymous. You do not have to give your contact details if you do not want to. The survey will run over the summer of 2009 – until the end of September.

How you can help us

We need help from people who are interested in support for people who experience domestic abuse within a same-sex relationship.

You can complete the survey and then keep feeding in your ideas about what will make things better.

You can tell other people about what we are doing.

Once the report is available, you can share it with other people in your area, to help raise awareness about the importance of this issue.

You can send us information about useful sources on support or advice, which other people would like to know about.

Once the project is at the stage of beginning to develop new services, you may want to get involved in planning something for your area.

How to find out more

Outside The Box

Email admin@otbds.org

Phone: 0141 445 3062

Access direct link to the survey at www.otbds.org/me-too

Council for Voluntary Services - Thriving and Connecting Communities in Stirling

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