Taking an anti-oppressive approach to training

If an employee were to experience a hate crime in your workplace, what would you expect them to do?

Research shows that only 44% of people from minority backgrounds trust the police and police processes. According to Government research , 67% of White adults said that they believe the police will treat them fairly compared to 56% of Black adults. An estimated 170,000 incidents of hate crime go unreported every year in the UK. We can link this low reporting rate to the lack of trust that groups who experience hate crimes have in the effectiveness of police reporting processes.

Perhaps you'd expect them to report it directly to you instead. Though, this lack of trust may spill over into your organisation’s internal reporting processes. Research from the Trade Union Congress (TUC) found that only 1 in 5 (19%) of employees that experienced workplace harassment reported it to their employer.

We call the space between prevalence and reporting rates the 'Trust Gap', and there are many ways that organisations can work towards closing it.

Providing multiple routes to report culture-damaging behaviours is a crucial first step. However, organisations must build the trust of marginalised, equity-deserving groups in these reporting routes in order for them to be effective and for people to feel empowered and safe enough to report. One excellent way to do this is to adopt an anti-oppressive approach to responding to reports.?

What is an anti-oppressive approach?

Anti-Oppressive Practice centres the experiences of equity-deserving groups in order to build structures and systems that work for everyone. Equity-deserving groups include but are not limited to women, people of colour, disabled people, lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people. The term equity-deserving recognises that there’s unjust experiences faced by these and other marginalised groups.?

Anti-Oppressive Practice is a social justice-oriented approach to working with people. It recognises the oppression that exists in our society and aims to mitigate its effects, eventually equalising the power imbalances that exist between people. It also recognises that all forms of oppression are interconnected in some way, shape or form (Aquil et al., 2021).?

Anti-Oppressive Practice focuses on how larger systems create and protect the unearned privilege and power that some groups have, while at the same time creating, maintaining, and upholding difficult and inequitable conditions for other groups of people (Baines, 2017). These inequitable conditions created by larger systems can lead to power imbalances between people on an individual level and this can be experienced when accessing support and services.?

The rise in calls for anti-oppressive practice

People are increasingly calling organisations to take action against the systematic oppression which exists within our institutions, particularly in response to social movements such as Black Lives Matter and the #MeToo .

Committing to adopting an anti-oppressive approach to responding to reports is an excellent step for organisations to take to work against systematic oppression.

About our training

Do you want to learn more about what it means to adopt an anti-oppressive approach to responding to reports?

We spoke with our partner base to understand their experiences of responding to reports, and in response to your requests have developed a Responder Training Programme.?

Whether you are in a dedicated role, a volunteer role, or only occasionally review reports this interactive training provides participants with the know-how to respond to reports in a way that builds trust in your platform and organisational response.?

The training covers topics such as:

• What are bullying, harassment, and culture-damaging behaviours?
• The kinds of reports you might receive on Report and Support
• The range of people that report on Report and Support
• Key considerations to take into account when you receive a report
• Having a trauma-informed conversation with a reporter
• The range of possible resolutions to reports?

The training programme will provide opportunities for participants to apply their learning to scenario reports and will encourage participants to consider their organisation’s internal processes and consider their responsibility and any limitations of their role..?

Additionally, we have a follow-on session that you can book, which covers adopting an anti-oppressive approach to responding to reports?

This includes:

-Exploring an anti-oppressive approach

-Discovering what the principles of anti-oppressive practice are and how you can apply these when responding to reports?

-Understanding more about equity deserving groups lived experiences and allyship

-Consider how microaggressions and hate crimes are experienced and work through examples of these.