Equal Opportunities policy
Statement of intent
Alias Arts CIC is an artists’ organisation that has at its heart issues of diversity, social inclusion and equal opportunities. This is not just in terms of our membership, staffing and recruitment but also in terms of the accessibility to, appropriateness of and engagement with our arts projects, events and activities.
Alias Arts CIC’s understands that equal opportunities is about valuing each individual’s lived experience regardless of race, ethnic or national origins, gender, marital status, sexual orientation, age, disability, religious or political beliefs or socio-economic status.
Encouraging and celebrating each individual’s unique insights is key to allowing Alias Arts CIC to have a multi faceted approach to problem solving and has played a pivotal role in the organisation’s success. In this way we actively support diversity by providing the means for these individual voices to be expressed to an equal degree of visibility, achievement and personal fulfilment. Our aim is that Alias Arts CIC’s policy will establish us as a model of best practice for arts organisations and artist led activity.
Policy
Alias Arts CIC’s policy is chiefly directed towards the interests of those it works with on its collaborative, community based or group projects and events. These will include our project partner organisations, individual artists collaborating with us, contracted workers involved in running our projects and participants in those projects including any other member of the public who makes an intentional creative contribution within a structured framework.
Our policy aims to promote:
• Equality of opportunity for all
• A working environment where our staff, partners and participants are treated with dignity and respect, valued for who they are and the contribution they make to projects and the organisation.
• All forms of prejudice, discrimination, bullying and harassment on the grounds of race, ethnic origin, cultural background, social class, religious beliefs, skin colour, age, gender, sexuality, physical ability or mental health will not be tolerated.
Alias Arts CIC communicates this policy to all staff, partners and participants, by ensuring that it is reflected in all our procedures, projects and actions.
Implementation
All Alias Arts CIC members and contractors are individually and collectively responsible for ensuring that they and the company implement this policy, within the framework of Alias Arts CIC’s structure.
Effective monitoring and evaluation systems will be in place at to ensure that the policy is implemented. These should be reviewed at Board meetings and a whole policy review will follow Alias Arts CIC’s annual review.
Gill Nicol is designated as having responsibility for co-ordinating this policy and monitoring it. It is her responsibility to act on information given to her and she is referred to in this policy as the ‘designated officer’.
Action Plan
Provision of Service
Alias Arts CIC’s activities are focused on the development and support of artist led groups, and therefore, artist-led culture, in the South West of England. Because its very nature is adaptable and collaborative, artist led culture provides a fertile ground for the development of politics of inclusion, a ground where to raise fundamental questions on the value of diversity associated to strategies of cooperation, and where to nurture the creative potential that every individual treasures, regardless of his/her race, ethnic origin, cultural background, social class, religious beliefs, skin colour, age, gender, sexuality, physical ability or mental health.
There are several means by which we achieve this:
• Racism - We see progressive anti-racism as that which admits that racism is multi-faceted and not the preserve of any one social group or another. We witness racialisation in individual indifference masquerading as tolerance, in non-participation misrepresented as disinterest and in individual geographical and economic limitations.
• Understanding - recognising the nature of a participant’s intelligence and being agile enough to spot it is an essential key to the smooth running of an Alias Arts collaborative project.
• Diversity - means being inherently amenable to change in terms of form and function in order to accommodate the cultural and social variety of groups (e.g. family groups, older individuals, youth groups, ethnically diverse groups).
• Inclusion - In its collaborative projects, Alias normally works with partnership organisations who may be responsible for recruiting the participants for our activities. When collaborating with other artists and groups Alias positively seeks to choose artists who represent the diversity of society.
Discrimination and Harassment
alias’ interface with discrimination and harassment issues will normally occur around their provision of service, specifically when they are hosting or conducting collaborative arts projects, workshops and events, whether involving selected groups of participants or members of the general public.
Harassment occurs when another person's behaviour causes discomfort or humiliation to the recipient, interferes with their legitimate activity, or creates a threatening, hostile or intimidatory environment for their work, or study or social life. Discrimination or harassment by any member of Alias, will be regarded as misconduct and dealt with through the appropriate disciplinary procedures.
Sexual harassment can be physical or verbal.
• Physical - Ranges from touching or patting to indecent assault or rape.
• Verbal - Ranges from sexually suggestive remarks or compromising invitations to aggressively foul language, unwanted demands for sex, or displays of pornographic or degrading pictures or objects in the environment, including computer screens.
Racial harassment includes:
• derogatory name calling
• insults and racist jokes
• racist graffiti, objects or pictures in the environment
• threats and verbal abuse
• ridicule or comments implying that a person's race impairs their ability
• physical assault and unwelcome physical contact
Bullying may be defined as any vindictive, cruel, malicious or humiliating treatment or behaviour such as:
• picking on people unfairly
• making unfounded criticisms
• isolation or non-cooperation
• aggressive behaviour or conduct, physical or verbal
Procedures for incidents outside of alias
alias often works with partnership organisations, who may contribute to alias’ events with their own audience. This makes it essential that strong links are maintained so that reports of discrimination or harassment are feed back to the partner organisation as soon as possible.
If a complaint is made to any member of staff this is the agreed procedure to follow
• Everything that has been said by the complainant or been observed by the member of staff/volunteer will be recorded on a Protection Disclosure Form. The completed records will be kept confidential within a secure location.
• We will ensure that the information is as factual as possible and does not contain assumptions or personal comments.
• We will record the dates and times when these events/situations have happened, taking care not to interpret their meaning and recording only what they say.
• If there has been an explanation given to a member of staff for injuries or behaviour, we will ensure that it is included.
• Members of staff or volunteers will immediately raise the contents of the Protection Disclosure Form, in the first instance, with the designated officer. The designated officer will then consult the partner organisation that has responsibility for that participant.
Procedures for incidents inside of Alias
In all cases, complaints should be made to the designated officer for implementing the Equal Opportunities Policy. The designated officer to whom the complaint has been made will advise the alleged harasser that a formal complaint has been made. Separate investigatory meetings will be held with both the complainant and the alleged harasser, accompanied by a representative if desired. The purpose of these meetings will be to discuss the problem and arrive at a resolution.
If the designated officer considers it appropriate, or if the problem is not resolved at this stage, the complaint will be submitted in writing at the soonest possible time to the alias Board of Directors.
Employment
alias is committed to a policy of equality of opportunity in its management, employment practices and the production of its projects. Its policies and procedures are designed to prohibit discrimination, either directly or indirectly, against any individual or group.
All staff will be recruited through the use of:
-an open advertisement in local and national press including minority press;
-a declared recruitment procedure - job description, job specification, representative shortlisting and interview panel;
-proper contracts and terms and conditions of employment.
Exit interviews will be conducted when staff leave in order to assess the current demands of the job.
All post advertisements will carry a summary statement of the equal opportunities policy.
Provision will be made for job sharing, maternity cover, paternity/matemity leave and carer's leave.
Access
The venues hosting our activities will be selected for barrier-free access points and facilities, ease of parking, and for proximity to public transportation where possible. Organisations and individuals participating will be consulted to ensure outcomes are designed, and sites selected, with an appropriate awareness and sensitivity.
alias will adopt as flexible an approach as possible and seek to make reasonable adaptations to the facilities of the venues we choose to accommodate the needs of disabled people and/or to assure favourable conditions to improve accessibility, like providing special transport to the venue if it is in a rural location.
alias’ web site will be designed to be accessible to viewers on low bandwidth connections, either by design or by offering a low bandwidth alternative. We will make sure that wherever possible all text is displayed at a reasonable size, both electronically or on printed items.
Publicity
Wherever possible all publicity will be distributed as widely as possible and be designed to encourage the participation from relevant groups. Any targeted publicity must be justified by the nature of the project or activity.
Non Discriminatory Language
All publications will avoid the use of words or phrases which are directly or indirectly discriminatory.
26th June 2007