MOVE Charity Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Strategy/Policy:

Aims and Mission statement

Aim: 

Our overall aim is to strive to be an inclusive organisation for those we work with and provide support to. We want to actively promote MOVE Charity to a range of diverse communities from all backgrounds to ensure we are able to reach as many people as we reasonably can. This is because we believe that everyone, regardless of their background or story, is free to be themselves, deserves to be treated fairly and has the opportunity to benefit from our community.

Why is this important to us as a community? 

Mission Statement

We believe that everyone has the right to the highest attainable level of health and happiness, regardless of how much money they have, the colour of their skin, their age, sexual orientation, religion, gender identity, disability status or where they live. We would love for everyone to have equal and just opportunity to benefit from MOVE Charity. But sadly, we know that it’s much easier for some people to access our areas of work  than others. The barriers to accessing our 5K Your Way groups, our MOVE Online Programme and our Move Your Way Resources will be incredibly complex, but we are committed to upholding the principles of equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) and play our part in the bigger picture of tackling health inequalities. We are committed to making MOVE Charity as welcoming as possible to people from all backgrounds and we will make targeted efforts to identify and work with communities where action is most needed. Our goal is to understand the barriers to attending 5k Your Way and our MOVE Online Programme as well as our online resources for people from a range of diverse communities and take positive actions to reduce these barriers. We will strive to be a more inclusive organisation because we believe that everyone deserves to be treated fairly and have the opportunity to benefit from our community. By playing our part, we can welcome as many people as possible to join our efforts to MOVE Against Cancer.

We want our MOVE community to reflect the diversity of the population. This includes our staff, volunteers and people who participate in our programmes (people living with/beyond cancer, their friends, family, people working in cancer services and people that have lost someone to cancer). We want to ensure that there is equitable access for anyone to join and benefit from our community and that everyone feels respected and valued, whatever their background or story. We strive to treat people fairly, so this might mean changing our approach depending on the needs of the individual(s) we want to support. 

We hope to achieve this through the following aims: 

  1. We are open, honest and transparent about our EDI aim, mission and goals.
  2. We are committed to doing our best to challenge inequity in access to our community (as an employee, volunteer or user/participant). 
  3. Wherever possible, we take an evidence-based approach to setting our EDI priorities. This involves internal analysis of our own existing data, collecting new diversity data from our community, as well as using available evidence to inform what we do (e.g. national/local statistics and being informed by best practice in EDI).
  4. Wherever possible, we ensure our services are co-developed and monitored to reflect the diversity of communities we support.
  5. We audit and assess our policies, procedures, programmes, communications messaging and channels to identify areas of good practice and areas for development. We use these findings to guide the development of our EDI strategy and action plan. Wherever possible, we will ensure our services and the EDI strategy are independently reviewed. 
  6. We have created an EDI Advisory Group who: 
    1. Represent people from a range of backgrounds and bring a diverse perspective to all that MOVE does.
    2. Act as champions for EDI within MOVE, proactively promoting the importance and benefits of EDI across the organisation.
    3. Advise on how MOVE can enhance diversity across 5K Your Way groups, the MOVE Online Programme and Move Your Way Resources.
    4. Create, influence and advise on the development and implementation of the EDI Strategy and Action Plan.
    5. Highlight areas within MOVE where EDI is strong, and not so strong, and strive to work on improving all areas – supporting the identification and delivery of solutions.
    6. Monitor ongoing and new MOVE activities to ensure they are not unintentionally excluding anyone.
    7. Reach out to and engage with different communities to ensure that a diverse range of people are involved in influencing what we do.
    8. Meet as a group virtually at least quarterly to discuss EDI issues, share ideas and monitor progress against the EDI action plan. 

Who is responsible for MOVE’s EDI strategy?

EDI is everyone’s responsibility. Everyone involved and associated with MOVE Charity has a responsibility for delivering our EDI strategy – from our Board of Trustees to the people who participate in our programmes. The Strategy Aims and Mission Statement have been developed by members of the MOVE EDI Advisory Group and MOVE Charity staff. They have been reviewed independently and have been signed off by the MOVE Charity Board of Trustees.  We are a small team relying heavily on volunteers, but we have sincere intentions to make a difference. 

How will the EDI strategy be implemented?

EDI is an evolving landscape. Our strategy will be continually checked and realigned as our community, insights and understanding grows. As such, this document will be subject to change as our strategy evolves. However, just having this Strategy document doesn’t achieve our mission to be actively inclusive. We want EDI to underpin all the work that we do.  Our Aims and Mission Statement will be accompanied by an Action Plan. The Action Plan will set out specific evidence-based priorities that we will deliver to make our strategy happen. This will be an iterative plan to address EDI issues across MOVE Charity as they arise. It will change as our knowledge and understanding of EDI issues develops. 

Breaches of the EDI strategy

Any EDI issues, concerns or complaints can be reported to MOVE Charity HQ by contacting editeam@movecharity.org. Any breach or failure to meet our EDI strategy will be investigated promptly, fairly and seriously by MOVE Charity HQ. Upon notification of an EDI issue, we will aim to respond as soon as possible. An escalation plan will be followed and issues will be resolved on a case-by-case basis. The EDI Advisory Group will be consulted if deemed necessary and appropriate. We will ensure that we reflect, learn from and take action on all EDI issues raised.

Putting EDI into practice at MOVE Charity

We may need to adapt the resources and support we provide to people using our services to ensure that they are equitable and inclusive. Assessing our existing and new resources against an ‘EDI Assessment’ will help us to achieve this and recognise where we could do better.

Glossary: 

This is what we mean by equity, diversity and inclusion and under-served communities: 

Term Definition Example in MOVE practice
Equity Equity recognises that people may have different advantages and barriers, and that we don’t all have the same starting point.

Equity differs from equality. Equality is about equal opportunities and means that everyone gets treated the same, regardless if it’s needed or right for them.

Equity is about giving people what they need for fair access.

 An equitable MOVE Charity will mean that everyone in our community gets support and treatment in the way that they need – taking into consideration and understanding the barriers, circumstances, and conditions they face.
Diversity Diversity is the range of people in our community. It’s about understanding that each individual is unique, recognising our individual differences and valuing them. As a diverse community, we will appreciate and respect people’s differences. We will embrace varied lived experience and different perspectives. This will lead to better services and support for the people we work with.
Inclusion Inclusion is the practice of including people in a way that is fair for all, values everyone’s differences, and empowers and enables each person to be themselves and achieve their full potential and thrive.

 

 As an inclusive community, we will allow everyone to feel confident and engage fully in the services we provide. We want people to feel a sense of belonging to the MOVE Charity community. We can achieve this by making sure that everyone has a voice and means to participate, which may involve making changes to our usual processes.
Under-served e.g. under-served communities and groups Under-served communities are groups of people that have lower inclusion in research and service provision. The term reflects the need for service providers/ researchers/ charities to provide a better service for people in these communities and groups – and the lack of inclusion is not due to any fault of the members of these groups.

 

 In acknowledging that there are under-served communities and groups of people in MOVE Charity’s work, we place the emphasis on us at MOVE Charity to make sure our services are made more accessible to these communities. It is not due to any fault of these communities that they are not included, and so we work to reduce any barriers and increase the accessibility and inclusion in our work. 

 

To read our Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Survey Reports and our Insights and Action Plans, please visit this page.