Welcome to Season 2!

It's 2025 and we're back with Season 2 of D&I Digest!

This month, we're doing some reflection of last year and looking forward to future episodes. Join us for a bit of a behind-the-scenes episode!

If you have a question for us, or any thoughts on the episode, then you can submit it through this form.

Music used is:
Who Do You Think I Think You Are? by Mini Vandals

Transcript

H: So welcome back to another episode of D&I Digest. I'm Henry, I use he/they pronouns. 

T: And I'm Teagan and I use she/her pronouns. 

H: We make up the Diversity and Inclusion team at Anchor, which is an organisation that specialises in housing and care for over 55s. And this episode marks a full year of D&I Digest, which is very exciting! 

T: Season 2! Season 2! 

H: So yeah, we're gonna start 2025 off with a bit of reflection on the things that we've spoken about last year, a bit of forethought into what we're gonna do this year. And yeah, shift up the layout of the episode a little bit. So we've not got any articles today, we're just gonna do some firing questions at each other and- 

T: Bit of reflection. 

H: Yeah. 

T: After a full year of doing D&I Digest, can you believe it?  

MUSIC 

T: So, to get started then, I think my first question for you, Henry, is what was your favourite episode of 2024? 

H: I think overall, my favourite episode was the February one on LGBT History Month, partly because I remember us recording that and we were still trying to work out how to muffle sound and we bought in blankets and pillows and we made a little blanket fort and honestly I loved that, very fun. 

T: We did! 

H: But also I just, I remember talking about things like medicine, I think was it the theme of the year wasn't it? 

T: That was. It was, yeah. 

H: And I really like that conversation, that whole topic really interests me. So I think it was something that I personally knew quite a lot about and could talk about, and indeed do talk about, until the cows come home. So yeah, really liked that episode. 

T: I liked that episode as well, that was really good. And there was a really interesting discussion that we had around IVF as well that I really liked, and it was the couple that were asexual.  

H: Yes, yeah, that was it. 

T: And it was really interesting to like try to understand the nuance behind this couple that were together but they were asexual and it was like oh okay I'm trying to understand that and then with the IVF context on top of it- really interesting. And I think it was one of those topics that we enjoy talking about but also from the perspective of IVF we're coming in with absolutely no knowledge of that really whatsoever because it's not something we've ever experienced so it was nice to have that- 

H: Learn it. 

T: Yeah, it was nice to cover that topic with you and have that discussion.  

H: It's great as well because now I'm starting to have friends who are like getting married and thinking about children and every so often I just walk into a conversation like, “I know a lot about IVF now” and they're all like, “Uhh, okay?” So yeah, I love that. 

T: Amazing. 

H: It's great fun. My first one for you is, what has been the best part about making the podcast? Bit of a behind the scenes question. 

T: Not to sound cheesy, but it's definitely been spending the time with you and having the conversations with you. 

H: Aww! 

T: I always enjoy that. For those of you that don't know, me and Henry are a two person team, so we do spend a lot of time just talking to each other to be fair and getting through the work that needs to be done. And actually the whole point of the podcast was born out of the fact that when me and Henry do get going with a conversation we can be on Teams for hours having a discussion about something and really trying to unpick some of the problems that we experience, working through things in order to come up with the right resolution to any problem that we're experiencing, or develop a new activity, or plan an event, or whatever it might be. And I think it was those conversations where we both kind of just took a step back and like, "Should we record this? Should we record it and see what happens?” 

H: “Shall we inflict this on everybody else?” 

T: “Does anybody else want to hear these conversations? I think they might.” So that's kind of gave birth to the idea of D&I Digest, if you will. But yeah, that's been my favourite part about it- 

H: Aw, very wholesome. 

T: It’s just having those conversations. And sometimes disagreeing, which, I must say I get a little bit of a kick out of it sometimes. 

H: It doesn't happen often so when it does it's really fun. 

T: It doesn’t, it’s quite exciting. 

H: I’m waiting for the episode maybe this will happen in 2025 where we absolutely just argue. I think it'll be great fun. 

T: Like a jerry springer episode, yeah? 

H: Yeah, it’s not a disagreement it's genuine “I can't understand where you're coming from with this.” I think it'll be very fun. 

T: Waiting for the day. 

H: That's my target for 2025. 

T: Excellent. Let's just- 

H: Cause problems on purpose. 

T: Let's just pull out the controversial topics now then. So my second question for you is, who was your D&I hero of 2024? 

H: It was during the Neurodiversity episode: Neurodivergent Lou. Presumably Lou is their name. But I remember that conversation being just after my own diagnosis. So actually it was a really helpful person for me to go and like frantically follow on Instagram. 

T: Great! 

H: So thank you Nadine for showing me that person. 

T: That's nice as well though, it's nice that whilst we're putting this content together in order to try and share a bit of our knowledge with everybody else, it's nice that we're also learning things from it as well.  

H: Oh yeah! 

T: I've learnt so much from doing this for the past year, it's been really great. 

H: It's nice as well because the way that she writes all of her posts, I'm pretty sure we covered this in the episode, but throwback time, all of her language is really inclusive in terms of like gender and stuff, because she talks a lot about autistic women, but the way that she phrases it is quite nice because it's like the most accurate, I think, reflection of the way that my brain works in a way that I also am not really bothered by reading so yeah it's really nice. 

T: Awesome love that. 

H: My second question for you is, are there any conversations that we've had that have been hard for you? 

T: I think sticking with the conversation that we were just having around neurodivergency, that was difficult for me. It was just difficult to share it and kind of own that element of myself. I think mostly because I'm quite a closed book generally speaking and I don't know why but revealing that about myself quite felt quite personal. 

H: Interesting yeah.  

T: And it's odd because there are many characteristics about myself that I don't mind sharing but still trying to get out of a headspace where there's like that self-negative talk around being someone who is autistic and being like, “Yep.” And just leaving it there and not having to go through the motions of over explaining myself or trying to give people some sort of, I don't know, just like more context to what that means and taking a step back from that being like “I don't actually have to do that. I can just sit and be my autistic self and just, that's it. I don't need to do any more explanation of it,” but kind of saying it out loud on the podcast, knowing that there's going to be other people that hear it was kind of scary. But I’m glad I did! 

H: I was gonna say like, did it help anything or was it just a really tricky thing that is still quite tricky?  

T: Yeah, I guess so. It's allowed me to have a bit more confidence in engaging in conversations that affect the autistic community. I mean, weirdly for me, when we talk about special interests and stuff, although I am autistic, my special interest in researching around this is more aligned with ADHD because I find it absolutely fascinating. So I guess it's given me a little bit more confidence to have those conversations openly in an external forum, Whereas I probably wouldn't have done before.  

MUSIC 

T: So, my third question for you, Henry. Are there any groups slash communities you feel didn't get a big enough mention last year? 

H: I'm not sure if I just can't remember the conversations. But I don't think we've done a huge amount on like religion? 

T: No, I think we have actually. 

H: We've covered it kind of peripherally I think, but I don't think we've particularly focused on that. Which is interesting because neither of us are particularly religious I think? 

T: No.  

H: I guess for us it is a bit of a, there's no lived experience in that area. 

T: That's true. 

H: So it's hard to talk about in a way that's quite quick. 

T: Yes, I agree with that. I think, like you say, we've touched on it peripherally, like my only alignment to religion is that I grew up in the church. I left the church when I was about 14 and decided it wasn't for me anymore, so I can definitely come at it from that angle. But what I do think is probably an important conversation that we should have given the state of our society at the moment around this topic is probably Islamophobia.  

H: Yeah, yeah. And we might have covered it very, again, very peripherally. 

T: Very light touch, yeah. 

H: And yeah, I think there's a big gap in that conversation. 

T: I think so. 

H: So yeah, I think that's a big area that we've kind of not really touched on. If there are any others that anyone can think of, please let us know, but yeah, that's the big one that I can think of.  

T: Well, I think we've got something to strive for for 2025 right there, then. 

H: So, the next question for you then is do you think we're achieving what we set out to do in doing this podcast?  

T: I hope so.  

H: Yeah, if we get a year in and we're like, no. 

T: No, we've wasted an entire 12 months of our lives. I hope so. I know that we've got some regular listeners that do come and- 

H: It’s nice hearing it 

T: It is. It's lovely, isn't it? It's like, come and feed back to me and go, “Oh, it's like having two mates in my ear when I'm going about my business and listening to the podcast,” which I love. I think we are definitely touching on subjects that some of our listeners will probably never engage in.  

H: Yeah, definitely. 

T: Because you've got to be in the right space, haven't you? Like if you're a group of friends, for example, and you all look the same, you went to the same school, you probably do a similar job, you probably live similar lives actually the space to have some of these conversations might be a bit limited. So what I hope that we're giving to people is the room to have kind of a conversation in that they're listening to us talk about something that they've probably not had the opportunity to engage with otherwise. 

H: Yeah. 

T: Like I say, at least I hope that's what's happening. I hope that we are sharing things that are useful for people to bring to their workplace and in their home life. That was one of the things that we set out to do as part of this podcast is, if you work in a role where you have the ability to change things that happen in your workplace, I do think that when we get to the question section, we usually have something to say that's gonna be useful to take into a workspace. So yeah, I do think that we are certainly fulfilling what we thought the purpose of this podcast was always going to be. But there's always room for evolution, there's always room for improvement, so.  

H: Yeah, and I think even just within this last year, we've kind of shifted the way that we've set things out. Because initially we were like, we'll have one article for an argument and one article against it and discuss them. That didn't really fly because it was really hard to find two articles talking about the same thing that weren't either horrific or like directly in contrast to each other so we've already kind of shifted that but yeah, hopefully it's still an accessible way to talk about or listen to D&I, especially for people who don't work in this area, because I hear a lot, like even just, “What does D&I stand for?” And it's like, oh yeah, actually if you don't think about this daily, you're probably missing, and I don't want to say like the obvious stuff because it's clearly not obvious unless you're in that space. So yeah, it's nice sometimes to be reminded from people who were saying like, “Oh yeah, I listened to your episode this morning. Never really thought of that.” And it's like, oh, cool. We're clearly talking about hopefully the right stuff then! 

T: Fingers crossed, yeah. That's good, lovely.  

MUSIC (11.39) 

T: Question four then, what initiative or work were you involved in last year that you are particularly proud of? 

H: So many things! 

T: Oh that's good, tell me them all then. 

H: Oh because this was my first, like, full year in this job, so I feel like there's been a lot of things that either I didn't really know was a thing before this, so therefore I'm quite proud of being involved in them because I've learned a lot and hopefully everybody else has learned a lot, so things like we run various workshops in Anchor and kind of talk about things like trans inclusion, safe curiosity, things like those, and I really like seeing those develop because previously I was a teacher and it's nice to use those skills in a different context and see them still work, which is always reassuring. So I really enjoy that kind of thing and also they're very collaborative as well, so every time we give them, we hear new things from the people in those sessions, so I really, really enjoy those. Personally, I'm very proud of the supporting trans and non-binary colleagues in the workplace. 

T: I was hoping you was going to mention that. 

H: I felt like it's my absolute child in this job currently so yeah I'm really proud of that. I think it's the first big piece of work that I've been responsible for and really like taken ownership of so it's been really nice for me to realise that I can do that- 

T: It's a fantastic piece of work it really is and that really shows in the amount of organisations that have reached out to you for you to come and talk about it.  

H: It’s really surprising! 

T: And you've been a guest speaker at massive conferences where people wanted to hear about this work and yeah, it was really good. I think you should be proud of the work that happened over Black History Month as well. I thought that was really good. 

H: I feel like we've probably mentioned this before, but it's a really strange thing I feel for me to get involved in. 

T: Sure. 

H: Because it often feels like the White guy is leading this. Which is something I don't want to kind of come across in at least a bad way. So yeah, I'm always really cautious about those, but I'm glad that it's coming across not in a really awful way! 

T: No, not at all. I mean, if anything, it comes across as a really great display of allyship as far as I'm concerned. 

H: That's great, that's kind of what I was hoping! 

T: I desperately am against the idea of Black and Brown people solving Black and Brown people problems. 

H: Yeah, definitely. 

T: And I think that where there's space for us to come together as a team and tackle these kind of things and when you've got the time to lead a project like that, I think it's great. 

H: Yeah, there's loads of loads of projects that I'm really proud of just kind of occurring at the same sort of a time, like none of those things happen in isolation.  

T: No, of course not. 

H: So it's really, really nice to see how they all influence and manifest each other and something sparks a conversation in an area of the organisation that I wouldn't have really thought would be relevant and yet they've found a way to make it relevant and to bring D&I into their area and that's really nice to see. Anything for you? 

T: Lots of different bits. I think that we have done a really good job of actually making some headway on our resident side of D&I things, actually. There's the biggie, which is trying to understand our resident D&I data and trying to make headway with that. But outside of that for me, it's starting those conversations with our Resident Inclusion Forum and gaining a better understanding of who's wanting to be involved in those discussions. I think some of the work that we're doing around reasonable adjustments and improving that process has been really good to see and it's a case of getting that over the line now with the policy, but actually some of the fundamentals of what needed to change- 

H: The groundwork. 

T: Yeah, with the reasonable adjustments has been changed and it's things like making sure that there's budget available for people to use, actually having it as a centralised pot that people can access is a lot better. I think having more of a clear vision of what we want to do campaigns-wise over the year has been really useful actually! 

H: Yeah! And really nice as well because we've had this conversation so many times, like these are all annual events. 

T: Yeah! 

H: We should really be able to anticipate them a bit better. 

T: Oh totally. 

H: And so it's nice to have them all laid out and be like we know exactly what's happening. 

T: We know what we're doing. 

H: 12 months in advance! Love that. 

T: I've loved introducing new workshops this year so, like you mentioned, the Safe Curiosity, the Challenging Discrimination, Inclusive Recruitment, I think they're all necessary and have been pretty well attended over the year. 

H: And well fed back on as well, because people have really liked them, which is nice. 

T: And actually, it gives us space to then evolve them as well, even further. We've recently had discussions about how we're going to evolve the Safe Curiosity one to have conversations around media and media literacy and what that looks like. So yeah, I think we've, collectively, we've done a really good job actually over 2024 of making headway with our D&I strategy that we want to achieve. And I certainly feel that we have made progress from 2023 and that's always the most important thing for me. Especially because in 2023 we were awarded Gold status by Inclusive Employers. Would have been very easy for us to rest on our laurels.  

H: Yeah, and get complacent with that. 

T: Totally, it would have been very simple for us to go, actually, nailed it. 

H: Fixed D&I. 

T: Nailed it, moving on! But actually all it's done, I think, for us collectively is spur us on to give space to some of the bits that are not the foundational elements of D&I. It's like, okay. 

H: Yeah, and bits that we expect everybody to be doing. It's been quite nice to be like, “Okay we're now ahead of a lot of people, how can we now make other people do better?” 

T: Yeah. How can we share that? 

H: Like spur it on a little bit. 

T: Yeah how can we influence this in the sector in the right way? And we have absolutely gone out of our way to do that this year I think in a variety of ways and that's been that's been quite special and very enjoyable. 

H: Okay, last question for you then is, for you, which episode has been the most important for people to hear and for us to talk about?  

T: Coincidentally these are some of my favourite episodes. The one on representation, the conversation that we had about the West Yorkshire Police Force, and representation in sport and when we talked about swimming and I shared some of my personal experiences with being a child and going to the swimming baths and it not really feeling like a space that was suitable for me. I thought that was a really great discussion, definitely one of my favourite episodes of the year. Really enjoyed that. I really enjoyed the conversation about AI and whether AI is racist.  

H: Oh yeah. 

T: And that was probably one that we slightly disagreed on. 

H: I think we disagree on that one! 

T: I feel like the sentiment’s there. We both agree the elements of it are wrong, but you're like “AI sucks.” And I'm like, “I don't mind it. We can use it in a different way.” And you're like, “No, no, no, nah, no.” 

H: Not for me. 

T: So I enjoyed that and enjoyed that discussion. And I think the point about it being important is because people need to know that when they are using these things that there are pitfalls with it, that they're coming into it with that disclosure. 

H: Yeah. It’s very linked to what you mentioned with media literacy and that we're going to include it in Safe Curiosity. I think that's one of the things where AI really falls short. Is that very few people have been curious about it. They've either been, like me, vehemently against it or throwing everything into it and there's very rarely that middle ground so I think that was nice. I enjoyed that conversation, I learned a lot. 

T: I liked it, it was good. And then finally, and this does take the first place for me in terms of favourite conversation because I just loved it: Safe Spaces. 

H: Oh yes! 

T: The guy that got awarded a mill because he had dyslexia but he used the N word in the training session. What an absolute riot like that for me just encapsulates everything that I love about these conversations because it's like you absolutely think this is going one way and it does not. 

H: It was an absolute rollercoaster of an article as well. 

T: Right! 

H: I remember you sending it to me and like watching as I live narrated reading you were like next paragraph go! Wild ride. 

T: It was just amazing wasn't it and I think that was the point where we discussed maybe the empathy gap as well. I think that was an essential discussion for people to try and understand because it was literally a place where you had a conversation that definitely used racist language but you're also having that conversation with someone whose brain works slightly differently. 

H: Yeah. There were layers. 

T: And it was just, yeah. Like the nuance that we had to unpick with that I thought was great. So that was first place for my favourite episode and I do think that those three, so the Representation, Is AI Racist, and What Is A Safe Space, overall episodes I do think people should take the time to listen to because I think they're very useful and very important. 

H: So I just thought of another question: are there any topics or conversations or episodes that you feel like you could add something to that you want to do again because I remember like while I'm editing them I always think "Oh I missed out that bit!” “Oh it'd be really great to say-”  “Oh you idiot you forgot that completely!” So yeah, anything that you want to go back to you recover and do like an additional layer too? 

T: I think the difficulty is is that we could sit and talk for hours. 

H: Oh we do. 

T: So actually the 40 minutes that our listeners get, that's been shortened to quite an extent really, sometimes. 

H: Absolutely. 

T: But to answer your question, I would love to cover more around media literacy and social media because I think so much of how people are influenced around these conversations does come from media and social media. 

H: Yeah. 

T: So I think that needs covering in a bit more depth. And I would probably like to revisit the AI conversation towards the back end of 2025? 

H: Yeah that would be interesting to see if anything's shifted. 

T: Yeah just to see how it's evolved and to see if there's still a real problem with how it's not capturing lots of different people. So what about you?  

H: I've got one around representation, which I feel like is a weird one because we've already kind of done two episodes on it, but I think there are so many branches that that can go down and so many different perspectives as well. Because like I've just finished reading a book called It's Not About the Burqa. 

T: Oh, yes. 

H: I'm throwing it at everybody. I'm like, it's amazing, it's great fun! But that had some really interesting conversations about representation in it, which I'd never thought around that angle of it. And it's kind of got me thinking a bit more about representation and the way that it's done, and I really like that conversation anyway, so I think I could always come back to that. Yeah. Another one that I really liked was, you already mentioned it, about kind of the sport angle because it's something that we don't really see much of in our workplace.  

T: No. 

H: So I quite liked taking the stuff that we knew and applying it elsewhere. 

T: Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

H: But I would like to see it as well in like other capacities, because obviously we talked predominantly about ethnicity in sports. 

T: Yeah. 

H: So I'd quite like to branch that conversation out into other areas. 

T: Yeah, for sure. 

H: But like I say, I always finish editing an episode and go "Oh there's so much more on that!” 

T: I think that just to add on to the one about groups, communities, you don't feel like you get a big amount of mention, not necessarily a group or community, but something I think we should probably dive into a little bit more is debunking some stereotypes as to why they're dangerous. 

H: Oh yeah, I like that. 

T: Because I think that some people can have this idea of having a positive stereotype and it's like, ew, that's not really how it works. And I'd like to do some unpicking of the idea of positive stereotype. 

H: I love that, yeah.  

T: I think that would be good.  

MUSIC 

H: And our final point, which is a mutual question for both of us, do you have a D&I resolution for 2025? 

T: If I tell you something, you've got to promise that you're not going to laugh at me. 

H: I make no such promises. 

T: So, I'm quite a type A personality, as you'll be well aware, and my organisational skills do extend to my personal life as well as my work life. Whilst I don't go in for resolutions, because I'm just not that type of gal, what I do have is that between me and my husband, we have something called annual goals. And we do a- I can only call it an appraisal of how the year's gone. 

H: One to one. 

T: Yeah, an appraisal of what we set out to achieve at the start of the year, have we done it, what's the progress markers, is there something that we need to shift into next year. It's a very sophisticated, very lovely looking Google Sheet that's been done for the past three years I think and we will be having that conversation again and focusing on what we want to get done in 2025.  

H: I love that. It's like healthy relationship goals, like to an extreme, like we will be so healthy about this, we've got a Google Sheet for it. 

T: What about you? Any resolutions? 

H: In 2024, I started reading a couple of non-fiction books. 

T: Ah, yes. 

H: Which I don't really gravitate to, but every time I read one, it was like two or three that I read, but I really, really enjoyed all of them. And because like I've read quite a few different kinds. So I read ‘It's Not About the Burqa’, which is like a series of essays, I read ‘Transitional’, which was an autobiography, and there was another one that was not D&I related, it was a history book about the French Revolution. But the point stands! Yeah, I think I'd like to learn a bit more, I think, because it's very easy in this sort of realm to sit on, like, sit on laurels of lived experience. 

T: Yes, for sure. 

H: And so I think I'd like to carry on reading stuff because that's how my brain absorbs things. I'm not, sorry, a podcast person. So, yeah, I'll improve on last year's two books. 

T: I think one thing that I do want to achieve next year, whilst I don't think it's a resolution, I do think it's a kind of goal that I've got in terms of D&I. 

H: I'll take that, this is a loose question! 

T: It's to do a bit more research around social mobility and how you can effect change around social mobility in the workplace.  

H: That'll be an interesting one. 

T: I feel like this is going to be my new autistic special interest, because actually, it's not that deeply explored at the moment and I think once we're in a place where we might have some good data around it, because we ran our campaign towards the back end of last year, we might be able to start to unpick a bit of that. And I'm keen to find out how you can kind of move the needle, really, around social mobility and what it might mean for organizations that have poor social mobility. 

H: Yeah, that'll be a really interesting one, actually. 

T: Yeah. 

H: Look forward to it. 

MUSIC 

T: Brilliant, well, I think that wraps us up for our welcome to Season Two. 

H: Yeah. 

T: I cannot believe it is season two, January 2025. How did that happen? It's been really nice to have this time to reflect with you around what we did in 2024 as part of D&I Digest. So thank you for joining us for the conversation. And thanks for doing 12 episodes with me! 

H: Yeah. 

T: Well, 13 now. 

H: And thank you all for listening to them. 

T: For coping through them. So remember that you can follow us on our website and social media, and we hope you'll come back and listen in next month. So it's bye from me. 

H: And it's bye from me. 

Both: Bye! 

H: Happy 2025!