Jan-April 2022: A programme for transformative change
From January to April 2022, we ran our second Leadership Accelerator Programme. The programme equipped our cohort of Black participants with career knowledge and support, whilst supporting Race Equality Foundation, The Safety Box with the vital work that they’re doing to drive change, as well as supporting the work we do at Impact Black too.
There is a large amount of systemic racism that Black people experience across sectors and industries in employment. As an example, Black people across the UK have the lowest percentage of workers in ‘manager, director or senior official’ roles, at just 5%.
Whilst we continue on working with other organisations to change the tide of institutional racial injustice, we think it’s important for us to support Black people with their leadership skills. Our programme covered a variety of workshop topics from managing people, complex projects and problems to the art of leadership and effective communication, all designed to support our cohort with their career development.
Reflecting on our programme, Tolu, a member of the cohort, told us “Impact Black has a zeal to drive quality leadership skills. The coaches on the programme are exceptional.” Another participant, Zemamnesh, echoed the same sentiment. “The trainers and facilitating workshops that have challenged my thinking around leadership.”
As well as workshops, we also ran peer group sessions, and all programme participants had the opportunity to attend two individual coaching sessions. For Lauren, another programme attendee, this was one of her favourite parts of the programme. “The individual coaching really helped me to focus on where, how and why I want my career to progress.”
We also know that Black people and ethnic minorities face discrimination across all walks of life - from health to housing. But there are countless organisations out there doing important work on supporting Black people, especially those facing multi intersecting identities. For this programme, we were proud to work with the Race Equality Foundation and The Safety Box. Members of the programme were placed with these organisations, and Impact Black, focused on specific projects. Across this programme, 180 hours were given to support these organisations.
The Safety Box’s project was focused on helping the organisation to recruit for its advisory boards - one for adults and one for young people. The Safety Box is an award winning organisation helping to reduce violence and keep young people safe. The programme participants, Tolu and Sophia, helped to set up the application process of the advisory board, website page and more for the programme.
We were lucky enough to receive the support and time of two programme participants for a project for us. Ife and Zemamnesh looked into what the requirements and options are for future accreditation of Impact Black programmes, including creating and distributing a survey to find out more about how our work could best support Black professionals with their career development. When reflecting on the programme, Ife said that the programme has “It has enlightened me so much and empowered me to be a more intentional leader. I’m grateful to Impact Black for this opportunity.”
The last organisation that we supported during this run of our Programme was Race Equality Foundation, a charity that develops and disseminates better practice to promote race equality. For this project, Kelechi and Lauren devised and created assets for a digital campaign to raise awareness of poor mental health outcomes for Black people during Mental Health Awareness Week. Kelechi told us “We need more programmes/initiatives like this. We need to make this even more wide reaching and available to every Black person.”
Over the past 12 weeks, we have supported The Safety Box and Race Equality Foundation to continue building on the work that they do to help Black people. We have supported our group of cohorts to drive their leadership capabilities. We look forward to seeing the career development of our cohorts, and the organisational development of our placement organisations.