Wide Open Voices knows that for leaders, managers, and for many members of staff it often feels difficult to talk about, plan for, and implement effective inclusion programmes.
Inclusion is a complex subject that incorporates people’s sense of self and their differing beliefs, values, and feelings. It is a subject in which emotions often run high. It is also a subject that requires strategic and operational planning, appropriate KPIs, executive coaching and staff training to be effectively achieved. The complexities involved can cause organisations to seize-up in their efforts to be inclusive.
Our services provide the expertise, spaces, and training with which to resolve these issues and deliver equitable inclusion for all. We take a dialogic approach to engaging with staff at all levels to open up spaces in which to talk about, understand, plan, and implement equitable inclusion in organisations.
Our model is rooted in sociological theory, critical enquiry, and empirical research on the dynamics of inclusion and exclusion. This research demonstrates that developing an understanding of where the self and others are ‘situated’ in society creates a context where effective and sustained changes can be made.
Where we are situated in society refers to the relationship between the combination of our race, gender, class, sexuality, age, faith, the degree we are disabled by society, etc, and how power and opportunity flow through society. We understand, though, the complexity that intersections of all identity elements create and we recognise that the majority of people will experience some form of simultaneous advantage and disadvantage.
The Wide Open Voice model follows an empirically proven model drawn from academic research. This model begins with understanding the context (Understand) and moves through planning (Plan), coaching (Support), and training (Equip) to develop leaders and staff who are equipped with the knowledge, skills, and tools to build equitably inclusive organisations in a sustainable manner.
We will embed the knowledge and, crucially, the skillsets into your organisation such that it can create and maintain an equitably inclusive culture and realise the organisational benefits of inclusion no matter how the social, political, and economic context changes.
To find out more, please, email me at matt@wideopenvoices.com