Embracing Inclusive Practice – Fight the fear

The third episode of the Stronger Voices Together podcast explores inclusive practice – what does this actually mean, and how can organisations do more to provide opportunities for all children and young people? This important discussion revolves around challenging and re-evaluating established practices, and questions how organisations can create a truly inclusive culture.

Inclusive practice is so important because it ensures that each child and young person is treated fairly and with respect, giving them equal opportunities to fully participate in activities. It is about taking away barriers and recognising that everyone is different and needs different things, and inclusive practice therefore needs to be bespoke and focused on the individual. 

In this episode of the podcast, host Lucy Edwards is joined by Sheryl Catto (Artistic Director and CEO of ActionSpace), Luke Hollowell-Williams (Artistic Director of the Primary Shakespeare Company), Jocelyn Lightfoot (CEO of London Chamber Orchestra), and John MacNeely (Youth and Community Services Manager at Action on Disability). The guests and Lucy explore the meaning of inclusive practice, how inclusive opportunities and specialist practices differ from each other, and the barriers that organisations face in delivering inclusive and specialist activities. They also discuss how to avoid tokenism, the benefits of partnership work, and how inclusive practices can be embedded in an organisation’s delivery. The conversation finishes with some actionable and creative steps that organisations can take to be more inclusive in their practices – listen in to learn more!

Some thoughts that I took away from the episode:

• Don’t let fear get in the way. We often back away from trying at all for fear of doing things wrong. Fight the fear. If things go wrong, learn from your mistakes and move on.
• We need to accept the cost. In the words of Sheryl Catto, “your budget is a reflection of your ethics” – if you want to do this work, you need to invest in it and accept that it may not be cheap.
• Avoiding tokenism. Consult with young people and actually listen to what they would like to see, taking into account their needs and preferences. Collaboration and co-production are vital to true inclusive practice. Providing training, information and support are also important, for example around the social model of disability (the idea that disability is caused by the way that society is organised and the barriers that this creates, not by a person’s impairment).
• Implementing truly inclusive practice takes time. This is where funders play a key role. Five years is a decent amount of time to make a difference, but many funders still offer predominantly shorter grants. Short-term funding does not necessarily give organisations enough time to invest in changing their practices in a way that is sustainable beyond the grant.
• Evaluation of inclusive practices can be challenging, and funders need to understand that different evaluation methods may need to be used. Flexibility is needed when it comes to measuring and meeting specific outcomes. Some funders are willing to be more creative and understanding of the barriers, giving organisations flexibility, but this is not always the case. At John Lyon’s Charity, we recognise that the monitoring and evaluation of projects that involve working with D/deaf, visually impaired, neurodiverse, and disabled children and young adults may need to be carried out in different, often innovative ways.

At John Lyon’s Charity, we challenge our grantee organisations to make sure that their activities are available to all children and young people, regardless of disability, and that their opportunities are not only accessible but also inclusive and meaningful. We see it as the funders’ role to push their grantees forward in their inclusion journeys. We have also recently made a commitment to longer and larger grants with our new 5-year strategy, which was launched in 2023. We hope that this will provide organisations with more stability and the ability to focus on sustainable delivery. We would urge other funders to follow suit.

On the Cultural Inclusion page on our website you can find considerations on both starting and challenging your inclusive practices. And of course, make sure to listen to the podcast episode using the link below.