The Latest Bulletin

This important new book emphasises the sociological aspects of resilience. It challenges the idea that resilience is purely a psychological phenomenon by exploring the wide range of social factors involved. Available for purchase here

Often confusion arises because there is a lack of clarity about who is responsible for what. The more pressurized the situation is, the more likely this problem is to occur. This confusion can breed anxiety and that anxiety, in turn, can lead to fuzzy thinking which then contributes to confusion about boundaries. There is therefore much to be gained from being clear about where the boundaries lie. It is important to be clear about what you are personally responsible for in any given situation. But it is also important to be clear about what part you play in any shared responsibility. Are the others who share that responsibility clear about their contribution and are you all clear about how you…

Let me start by telling you a secret, you can’t tell my boss though. When I first got a job at The Equality Trust I didn’t really know what inequality was. This is probably partly down to my privilege, but if you asked me to define it, there and then, as I was being interviewed, I’d have been toast. So when I started at The Equality Trust, I did what everyone does, I googled it. Then I read books on it, really good books. Then I watched Ted Talks on it and listened to podcasts but still it couldn’t quite stick. I couldn’t quite make sense of it in my head. Until I heard a story about it. Then I…

Ted has been buoyant since the first day of lockdown. He is retired and lives in a village near Salisbury with his wife. They are financially secure and “continue to enjoy good health and have all we need at home”. He can still garden, cycle and enjoy the countryside. For him, and a fifth of Britons surveyed, it is business as usual. A collection of lockdown diaries compiled by 50 Britons over three weeks reveals a bleak contrast between those who, like Ted, can afford to cope in the current crisis, and those struggling to feed their families and maintain their physical and mental health. In a study put together by Britain Thinks, a third of respondents keeping weekly diaries…

Every year, our Bright Spots research programme works with local authorities across the country to understand the experience of their children in care and care leavers and explore ways in which their experiences can be improved. In one of our surveys a child reported: “I hate that when the register comes up on the screen and others in the class can see that I am CLA . It winds me up even though everyone knows. I don’t like to be different”. This alerted the local authority who cared for the child about how they felt about the school register. With this knowledge, their virtual school could contact schools to ask them to stop this practice. Click here to read more…

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This important new book emphasises the sociological aspects of resilience. It challenges the idea that resilience is purely a psychological phenomenon by exploring the wide range of social factors involved. Available for purchase here

Email has proven to be a very effective communication tool, saving a great deal of time, money and effort compared with the pre-email days. However, email has also brought problems, not least the well-documented ‘flame wars’ where miscommunication upon miscommunication has produced a series of heated interchanges that would probably have never happened in face-to-face circumstances. One problem that has received far less attention is the tendency to overuse email, to use it as the tool of communication, rather than one amongst many. For example, some matters can be much better dealt with by a telephone conversation or even a face-to-face meeting. And, while email has replaced letters in many situations, there remain many circumstances where a letter is a better solution…

As leaders looks for new ways to improve workplace well-being while reducing stress and burnout, a relatively new concept has emerged: job crafting, a strategy that gives employees the chance to design their roles for a more meaningful experience of work. Scientists have found that monotonous work can negatively impact mental health, cause us major stress, and lead to burnout. The chronically bored are at higher risk for drug addiction, alcoholism, and compulsive gambling. In her paper, “Neuroscience Reveals That Boredom Hurts,” Dr. Judy Willis, a neurologist and former classroom teacher, claims that when we’re bored, our judgment, goal-directed planning, risk assessment, focus, and control over our emotions all suffer. And a Korn Ferry poll of nearly 5,000 professionals claims…

Race equality and migrant rights organisations call for independent review into institutional racism in the Home Office. Following the publication of the Windrush Lessons Learned Review, 15 race equality and migrant rights organisations (full list below) have today called for an independent review into the extent of institutional racism in the Home Office and whether its immigration policies are in accordance with equality law around racial discrimination. The Windrush Lessons Learned Review outlines that the UK’s treatment of the Windrush generation was caused by institutional failures to understand race and racism in relation to the Macpherson definition of institutional racism, as set out in Lord Macpherson’s landmark Inquiry report (1999) into the murder of Stephen Lawrence. Click here to read…