Ripples Story: Giving a Voice to Everyone

In this article, Aimee Thorpe Mundt, Community Development and Engagement Assistant at the Why Not? Trust, explores what it means to lead inclusively and how it can create a workplace where everyone, regardless of background or experience, has equal opportunities to thrive. 

Inclusive leadership helps a workplace to run smoothly and fairly, and in this article, I explore what it means to me. Inclusive leadership allows people with different life experiences to have a voice and share their valuable opinions. It ensures that no matter who you are, what you look like, what your beliefs are, or where you are from, you have equal opportunities within your workplace.

I work with the Why Not? Trust for care-experienced people. This group often experiences stigma and discrimination for various reasons, including, but not limited to, the idea that they did something wrong and that’s why they were in care, that they are troubled or troubled, and that they are broken or unfixable, so not worth the effort.

It is important to note that most people who enter the care system do so through no fault of their own. Inclusive leadership within my workplace brings us all together to work towards the same goal: ensuring that care-experienced parents and students have the support they need to thrive.

Inclusive leadership is flexible

One way we’ve made the workplace more inclusive is through hybrid working. Most of us work from home and attend in-person events when required. This ensures everyone has an equal opportunity to a good home and work-life balance, which means everyone can bring their best selves to support the people we work with. Personally, I am experiencing some health issues and undergoing health testing. Workplace flexibility ensures that I can attend appointments. I am not scrambling to make up work hours at random and unsocial hours.

In turn, this means that I’m as healthy and rested as possible when I’m working instead of feeling more unwell from feeling overworked and tired! This is offered to all staff, and I see its benefits.

Inclusive leadership allows all voices to be heard

As a care-experienced person myself, and the only person on my team to be a part of The Village – a digital community for new parents and parents-to-be with experience of care – as a Villager (person who is a care-experienced parent) and as a staff member, I need my voice to be heard. Although I am the minority in the room, my direct experience of the care system is valued highly, as my experiences can directly inform the work that we are doing.

Within staff meetings, our leadership gives each member of staff time to share what they’ve been doing and ask for support with anything that’s needed. Within my assigned project, Wee Campus, which supports care experienced students in further and higher education, we allow opportunities for equal participation; I have developed a private Facebook group to allow students to connect, share and support each other. We have a weekly drop-in session online to allow students to come and talk to us, ask questions, get support, or let off some steam.

Fostering this idea of inclusive leadership allows me to participate in my workplace and project this inclusion onto those I work with. Making as many opportunities as possible to allow voices to be heard is what makes The Why Not? Trust operates so smoothly.