It’s Pride Month – a useful opportunity to share some of our recent work with the LGBT Foundation’s Price in Practice programme to prepare and achieve a ‘Silver Award in Excellence for LGBT+ Inclusion’ and take time to reflect on our journey to become a more inclusive organisation.
This opportunity came about thanks to Lewisham Council’s Public Health Commissioning team who commission our Good Food Lewisham project and made this programme available to all public health commissioned projects.
The programme included an all-staff training around LGBTQ+ awareness to provide a foundation for this work, an assessment of our current policies and practices and developing a training action plan with recommendations and suggested actions to help us improve our ways of working as an LGBTQ+ friendly organisation.
This work was supported by Lewisham Local’s EDI Working Group – a staff group who meet regularly to review and progress our approach to Equality Diversity and Inclusion alongside developing and reviewing an organisational EDI action plan.
Things we learned through the programme:
- Visibility is key to ensuring LGBTQ+ service users feel welcome and supported, and how to report an issue should one arise
- Our policies needed amending to remove language that could exclude LGBTQ+ identifying people from entitlements
- The issues that disproportionately impact LGBTQ+ community and the relevant laws and rights
- How to use non gender-specific language and the importance of data and monitoring demographic data: If we’re not counted, we don’t count.
Action we’ve taken since joining the programme:
- Increased visibility through using LGBT Foundation lanyards, putting up posters and promoting LGBTQ+ specific services and most recently flying flags for Pride Month in 2025
- Reviewing how we capture demographics in line with best practice
- Developed a zero-tolerance statement to harassment and what to do if people witness this within our organisation
- Amended policies in line with the LGBT Foundation’s recommendations
- Encouraging use of pronouns, for example in email signatures
Wider actions we are working on:
- Developing priorities for training and delivering training for team in relation to EDI
- Developing a safer spaces policy to support with event organisation to ensure we provide inclusive welcoming spaces
- Reviewing the complaints procedure and EDI policy
- Reviewing and updating the existing action plan
Reflections on process
The process of the action plan development required staff time and commitment to review our work practices, prepare evidence and make the changes suggested. This also relied on buy-in from the senior leadership team to amend policies in line with recommendations.
The investment was worth it; we learned a lot from the programme, and while there is always much more we can do, we were grateful to receive the Silver Pride in Practice Award in 2024, demonstrating we have ‘implemented feedback, made positive changes, and demonstrates a proactive commitment to LGBTQ+ equality.’
Next steps
A year on, and Pride Month is a helpful reminder that we need to continue to review our action plan to see where more can be done, or where some practices need picking up, alongside awaiting guidance on how the latest ERHC ruling will impact our organisation.
If you have suggestions for areas you think we could do better as an LGBTQ+ inclusive employer, please get in touch with us, details via the contact page.
Pride Month in Lewisham
You can find more details of what’s happening in Lewisham for pride month 2025 here on Lewisham Council’s webpage: Lewisham Council – Celebrate Pride 2025
Spotlight on a local LGBT+ group – Proud to Be Me CIC and Fundraising Plus
Lewisham Local currently hosts a Fundraising Development Manager who leads on supporting equalities-focussed groups. This year one of the priority focus groups for Fundraising Plus programme is LGBT groups.
The Fundraising Development Manager (Equalities), Karen’s, work has seen a burst of progress from group Proud to Be Me CIC run by Krystal. This emerging group empowers young girls, including trans girls, and non-binary youth (aged 11-24) at risk of exploitation, focusing on self-esteem, resilience, and life skills. By centreing equity, they create safe, inclusive spaces where young people can heal, grow, and reclaim their future. Initially Krystal joined Karen at a Drop In. When the pair first met Krystal was funding the work out of her own pocket. The pair talked broadly and Krystal went away with lots of ideas to implement.
This started to lead to funding and opportunities opening up with more funds raised and sessions being run. Krystal proactively followed up on funding opportunities shared on the peer sharing WhatsApp group, Friday Fundraising Club. In early 2025 Krystal applied to be part of Fundraising Plus, a more intense level of fundraising support. Since then Krystal has implemented systems for trust research and fundraising and seen more funds come in and more work done. She has raised over £13,000 from six grants with others in the pipeline. She has started fundraising for a van: (https://gofund.me/bbb2ea33) and is following up on two new avenues of fundraising where Lewisham Local have made introductions. Karen says: ‘Krystal’s energy and ability to learn new fundraising skills are a great example of how far and fast a group can grow, it is a delight working with her. I don’t know if she knows how talented she is – though I keep telling her!’
Krystal says: “I met Karen by chance at a drop-in, and we ended up speaking for well over an hour. She was warm, approachable, and full of valuable insights. At the time, her Plus programme wasn’t open, so she encouraged me to connect another Fundraising Development Manager, whose support aligned perfectly with my needs and helped improve my grant writing. Karen still kept her door open whether by text, email, or in-person drop-ins and often went out of her way to send me open grant opportunities, several of which turned out to be successful.
“When the Fundraising Plus programme opened, I was eager to apply and thrilled to be accepted. I shared with Karen that I wanted to focus on CSR, crowdfunding, contracts and tendering, and planning. She has supported me while allowing me to stay in the driver’s seat, which has really boosted my confidence not just in fundraising, but across the whole running of Proud to Be Me CIC. Karen has been a huge influence in my journey in such a short time, and her support has truly helped take our work to the next level.”
- For more information about Fundraising Support please check out this page: Light Touch support from the FDM Equalities
- The final Cohort for the priority work was agreed earlier this year, but there remains lots of support for groups here.
- More information about the pride in practice programme can be found here. Pride in Practice – LGBT Foundation