Gold Award Winners
Public Health Wales - People & Organisational Development
"We are thrilled to continue to work with Diverse Cymru on their Cultural Competence Certification Scheme. Over the years, the scheme has enabled us to work with a clear framework for meaningful action and supported us to make progress within Public Health Wales. We’ve embedded inclusive practices and developed initiatives that have had a positive impact on our ethnic minority employees which in turn has created a culture where all employees feel valued."
Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board Therapeutic Support Services, Mental Health and Learning Disability Division
“The scheme has really driven home the responsibility to embed changes, to keep our foot on the gas and to reflect on our own unconscious biases. Increasing knowledge of the uncomplicated nature of inclusion when driven by respect for all peoples’ narratives has been the greatest gift to us. Thanks to our relationships with Diverse Cymru – we expand and work hard to place inclusion and equity at the heart of everything we do.”
Silver Award Winners
Aneurin Bevan University Health Board - Maternity Services
"We are so grateful to be part of this work, creating a kind supportive service where care is personalised, individualised, focused to people's needs and deeply embedded in everything we do. The scheme has given us direction, guidance and vision to formalise the work and evolve. The workbook is invaluable, enabling us to critically evaluate what we do, celebrate achievements, and as a tool to share with every aspect of this work easily with the team."
Aneurin Bevan University Health Board - Patient Experience & Involvement Team
"The Scheme guides our vision of embedding cultural competence in our work programme, enabling us to better engage with and influence other teams, fostering continuous improvement. It helped us seek feedback from people from diverse communities, that we share at our Listening and Learning forums. The Workbook has helped us to celebrate what we do well and guides us in making changes to ensure people are truly at the heart of everything that we do."
Marie Curie Cardiff & Vale Hospice
"The Scheme has given us the opportunity to review our current practices in providing inclusive and compassionate end-of-life care to our patients, families, and carers. We have been able to celebrate our achievements in delivering what matters to people, regardless of their cultural or ethnic background. It has also helped us to identify other ways we can embed cultural competency in the care we provide and ensure our workplace is an inclusive environment for everyone."
Royal College of Midwives Wales
"RCM Wales’ vision was to influence and promote an increased cultural competence in maternity and neonatal workplaces in Wales. The scheme has provided a framework to address all areas of this work with Health Boards and HEIs, and work towards fulfilling our contributions to the Anti-Racist Wales action plan. Highlights on this journey have included holding the ‘Inclusive Maternity’ conference and calling for the Welsh Government to develop targeted recruitment for global majority midwives."
Cardiff Metropolitan University - Student Services & Employability
"The scheme has allowed us to reflect openly and honestly about the work we do, the impact we have, and how we can do better by all of our students. It has provided valuable learning and showed us the way to concrete action in becoming more culturally competent."
Citizens Advice Swansea Neath Port Talbot
"Although we have been working on anti-racism for the past few years, the Cultural Competence Scheme has given us a focus for this work and our staff something to rally around. Having a steering group to help me go through the workbook has meant this work is now something that our whole staff team is actively involved in. And has led to some good but challenging ideas – as it should!"
Hijinx Theatre
"The Scheme has been pivotal in informing our anti-racism work and ensuring it remains a priority across the organisation. The workbook helped us understand how to put this into practice and take meaningful steps towards change across all areas of our work. It has given us a focus so we can clearly keep track of progress and make improvements where needed. We now discuss cultural competence in team meetings and with our Board of Trustees."
NHS Wales Joint Commissioning Committee
"Involvement in the Scheme, championed by the Senior Leadership of our newly formed organisation, is enabling us to embed strong core values in our approaches to equality, diversity, and inclusion. The awareness sessions and subsequent reflection have given us impetus to effect positive changes as a Commissioning body. We are committed to our values of respecting each other, building trust, fostering collaboration and striving for excellence, particularly during this period of organisational transition and transformation."
Cardiff and Vale University Health Board - Primary Care Counselling Service, Psychology & Psychological Therapies Directorate
"Working collaboratively blending Admin and Counselling and Psychology departments for this prestigious award has enhanced our cultural competence awareness. Each department cannot function without the other. We put the needs of our clients at the centre of our business regardless of ethnicity, race, gender etc, we work hard to ensure the needs of our clients are met as soon as they engage with the service and throughout the whole process."
Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Board - iCTM
"Working towards our Diverse Cymru Cultural Competence Certification has helped us learn about and celebrate different cultures, get to know our staff and patients better and ensure we are creating an inclusive and welcoming workplace for our teams and visitors. It has helped us to shape projects using Equality Impact Assessments and encourage the wider organisation to follow suit. Cultural inclusivity has become second nature to all our staff in their day-to-day tasks."
Mid and North Powys Mind
"Even in one of the less diverse areas of Wales, being culturally competent, providing attractive and effective services for all, is really important to us at Mid and North Powys Mind. This scheme has helped our whole organisation learn and make changes to become more inclusive, successful and aware. Thank you."
Spectacle Theatre
"Diverse Cymru’s Cultural Competence scheme has impacted on all aspects of the company. Generating debate amongst staff, participants, trustees, and our wider community. It has influenced all company documents. Provided energy to instigate new ways to challenge exclusion and promote risk taking in in project development. It has challenged our thinking and our practice. It has been above all, enjoyable and enlightening."
Platfform
"While the path of enhancing our cultural competence requires time and commitment, the pay-off is substantial. Learning to respect and empathise with colleagues from diverse cultures and backgrounds, improves collaboration skills and fosters an empathetic and adaptable work environment. Diversity should be embraced as a strength and investing in improving Platfform’s cultural competence is crucial for growth. The journey towards a more culturally competent work environment might be long, but it's one worth taking. "
Taith
“At Taith, we’re committed to promoting an inclusive environment, which led us to participating in the Cultural Competency Scheme. This was not only enlightening but also impactful. It encouraged us to reflect on our progress in relation to cultural competency and opened conversations about further steps we can take. We recognize that anti-racism is an ongoing journey, and we’re dedicated to continuing this work to create a more inclusive and equitable environment.”
Bronze Award Winners
Powys Teaching Health Board - Maternity Services
"The Cultural Competence Scheme has provided the direction and guidance that we needed to shine a spotlight on equality, diversity, and inclusion within our maternity service. Abby has been a huge support to provide direction and share good practice from around Wales. The workbook has formalised our EDI action plan, ensuring we are consistently progressing and increasing competence within our working environments and service."
Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Board - Mental Health Service
"The Scheme has given us an opportunity to learn, develop and improve our service, helping us develop a more welcoming environment for our service users and staff alike. The workbook and support from Diverse Cymru enabled us to learn and evaluate our understanding of cultural awareness and to look at how we continue to improve and develop this work across different hospital sites within the Mental Health and Learning Disability Care Group."
Trivallis - Repairs & Compliance
"Inclusion and diversity are more than just words to the Repairs and Compliance team. It’s a core belief aligned within our organisation’s values. It guides how we build our teams, develop our staff, and engage with our tenants to create a service we can all be proud of in the communities we serve. Our commitment will continue to grow and make a difference as we live the Trivallis values, supported by the Cultural Competence Scheme."
Guernsey - Maternity, Paediatrics and Special Care, Princess Elizabeth Hospital
"The Scheme has helped us to understand how to better interact with people across cultures. It has given us the ability to: Engage with and celebrate different cultures; Better understand and be more sensitive to cross-cultural differences; Practice positive change; Foster trust and strengthen relationships with staff and service users; Understand that, unconsciously, we bring our own cultural bias to any situation Cultural Competence is a continuously evolving process within our service and Island Community."
Trivallis - Development, Regeneration and Assets
"The Cultural Competence Scheme has provided us with the tools and support necessary to combine our ideas and thoughts into future actions. The workbook has made us think differently and have wider consideration to the communities that we operate within, helping to form ideas for the future and to work with the wider staff to begin implementing this work across our projects."
All Wales People First
"All Wales People First recognised that it was not very diverse as an organisation, despite its best intentions. However, we didn’t know how to address this. The challenge felt daunting. The Cultural Competence scheme enlightened us. It educated us about the barriers to inclusion and how we could remove them. Suddenly the challenge changed into an exciting opportunity. An opportunity to enrich the organisation with new skills, voices and experiences that would strengthen our movement. "
Cardiff & Vale University Health Board - Headroom: Early Intervention in Youth Psychosis Service
"The Scheme has given us the opportunity to highlight the work we do to meet the cultural needs of staff and service users. Having support from Diverse Cymru helped us develop a plan to improve our service and we set up a team within Headroom to ensure we are working towards all our future actions. The Scheme will also help our service users take more of an active role in implementing our future actions."
Cardiff & Vale University Health Board Mental Health Clinical Board
“Staff Representatives found the Cultural Competence training to be high-quality, accessible and well-received. The principle of treating racial abuse as a reportable incident under Health & Safety is progressive, bringing us closer to “zero tolerance”. This has enabled dialogue elsewhere in the organisation, influencing staff and leaders to reflect on workplace culture, to pro-actively prevent problems, and address longer-standing issues. This is a starting point, but an honest, inclusive and collaborative approach.”
Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Board – Planning & Partnerships
“The Diverse Cymru Cultural Competence Certification Scheme has allowed our team to come together to really think about the work we do and the impact it has on others, both patients and staff. We have realised that we already do so much to try to be a culturally sensitive and welcoming team, but it has helped us shape, consider and make changes to further improve this.”
