Diversity & inclusion

The Centre for Education Development, Diversity and Inclusion (DDI) Committee was established in 2018 following the College’s endeavour to support staff of all backgrounds to thrive and enjoy work and life at King’s. We currently have members representing the academics, professional services, technicians, researchers, and PhD students. We work closely with the FoLSM DDI to implement Faculty DDI initiatives and identify and action our own priorities. The Faulty Executive board has set the DDI vision (see attached executive board DDI pledge). The Centre DDI is an integral part of realising the vision. We have identified the following Centre DDI priorities and are working on them.

• Two mentorship schemes

1. Educational mentor scheme – to provide mentorship for educational staff at all career stages to advance in their career (including, converting into the Academic Education Pathway); Applications for this scheme will open once a year. The mentorship will last for one year.
2. Scholarly mentorship scheme – to provide expert advice on educational research and innovation on request. This is an open call and based on projects. Colleagues can get in touch with the team anytime if they wish to be connected with a mentor.

• Challenging bullying, harassment and discrimination events for staff and students
  Have you experienced or witnessed bullying, harassment and discrimination? Or are you concerned that this may affect you or your peers? If so, we invite you to join a series of events in a safe and supportive environment to talk about how we can support each other in these difficult situations; and together how we can build a safe, inclusive and diverse learning and working community in FoLSM Centre for Education. During each session, we will discuss and scrutinise concepts of bullying, harassment and discrimination. We will be looking at some real examples and consider solutions both from personal and institutional perspective.
• Staff support for developing culturally sensitive and inclusive curriculum
• Championship for challenging discrimination, bullying and harassment

The CfE DDI achieves its aims through the collaborative working of the following Special Interest Groups (SIGs):

1. Decolonisation and inclusive education group: 
   1. To decolonise the content and create inclusive curricula;
   2. To engage and support colleagues and students to carry out their own decol work.
2. Attainment gap and differential experience group:
   1. To research the scope and cause of gaps and understand the varied experiences that contribute to the attainment gaps;
   2. To intervene innovatively and through collaboration with a wide range of stakeholders.
3. Support and wellbeing group (staff and students):
   1. To monitor and improve the mentorship scheme and ensure the scheme meets colleagues’ professional development needs;
   2. To continuously gather information from staff and students to understand the diverse needs;
   3. To provide safe environment to discuss discrimination, bullying and harassment in order to build individual level resilience;
   4. To provide training information on EDI.
4. Cultural competence curricula development group:
   1. To develop cultural competence (CC) contents for the programmes through a collaborative and interdisciplinary approach;
   2. To engage and support academics, clinicians and technicians to incorporate CC into their teaching.

If you wish to be part of the developments, or if you have any ideas of priorities you wish the CfE DDI Committee to include in our planning, please feel free to get in touch with us at folsmcfeddi@kcl.ac.uk.

The College now provides ample information on staff mentorship schemes, wellbeing and mental health and career developments. You may find the following web links useful.

Mentoring at King’s provides information for all mentoring schemes KCL staff can access as well as guidelines for mentors and mentees.

Staff wellbeing provides information on benefits King’s staff members are entitled to, including free eye test, dental care and training for career development and so on.

PDR provides guidance for how to prepare for your upcoming PDR. It’s useful to read for both managers and staff.

Probation guidelines  for research, teaching-only, academic and professional services colleagues.

DDI Confidential Advisors program provides support for staff and PhD students who are affected in any way by bullying and harassment.

You will find more information about the FoSLM DDI from this intranet webpage. More resource and information can be found from KCL D&I department webpage.