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News

29
Jun 2017

Diversity & Inclusion at Very Special Kids

At Very Special Kids we welcome people of all backgrounds and respect that the families we support are different in many ways including country of birth, ethnicity, culture, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, religion and ability. We are keen to ensure that the services we provide are accessible and responsive to the individual needs of all our families. To do this, we have recently set up a Working Group with representatives from all areas of Very Special Kids to celebrate these differences and think about what we can do to make our services as inclusive as possible.

Some of the things the Diversity Working Group hopes to achieve include:
·Identifying ways to make our physical surroundings more welcoming to people from all backgrounds
·Creating stronger relationships with advocacy organisations such as the Centre for Ethnicity and Health
·Gaining a better understanding of the cultural and other diversity amongst our families through improved data collection
·Ensuring that our publications, fundraising and social media reflect our diverse family population and are easy to read
·Understanding how we can better support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families
·Ensuring our services are accessible to same sex families
·Reflecting diversity in the children’s experiences during their stay in the hospice, for example in the artwork they do and the stories that are read to them
·Offering training on diversity and inclusion to all staff
·Better celebrating diversity by recognizing events such as National Reconciliation Week & Sorry Day, Cultural Diversity Week & Harmony Day, NAIDOC Week, International Women’s Day, International Day of People with Disability, and International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia

We would love to have some families involved in the Working Group too, so if you’d be interested in contributing in some way, please email Kara Briggs (General Manager Planning & Improvement) on kbriggs@vsk.org.au or call 9804 6252.


Categories: Family News
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