RCN Cultural Ambassador Programme
Helping organisations combat discrimination and embed a culture of inclusion
Create an inclusive workplace where all staff can thrive and deliver good quality care with our Cultural Ambassador programme
Inclusion is about a sense of belonging to – and being valued by – an organisation or profession. It is the recognition of how well the thoughts, contributions, presence and perspectives of different people are actively valued and integrated into a working environment.
An inclusive workplace is characterised by active cultures, processes and practices which enable individuals and groups to perform at their highest levels as a result of being psychologically safe, free from discrimination, properly supported, empowered to collaborate and inspired to innovate.
What the Cultural Ambassador programme does for your organisation
The Cultural Ambassador programme is designed to support organisations to improve equity, diversity and inclusion by:
- improving the experience of staff involved in formal and informal processes,
- reducing the imbalance in severity of disciplinary actions taken against minoritised staff members, and,
- improving the recruitment and retention of diverse staff members in higher positions.
Our team will guide you through the process of making changes to your employment relations and/or recruitment processes to embed the Cultural Ambassador role within them.
We train your selected staff members as Cultural Ambassadors to identify discrimination in every step of these processes and provide them the tools and skills to address it. This training takes place online over four half-day sessions.
The final session is a Learning Lab where the Cultural Ambassadors get to practice their new skills in a case-based scenario.
Ongoing support
- Bi-monthly action learning sets open to all Cultural Ambassadors where they can learn from each other
- Monthly Cultural Ambassadors Leads meeting with our Inclusion Programmes Lead
- Online Cultural Ambassadors alumni space with access to useful resources and discussion groups
- Wellbeing and self-care webinars
“I found the training so empowering and influential… it has enabled me to support my organisation, looking at policies and new processes, and informal conversations with colleagues”
Our impact
40+ organisations
500+ cultural ambassadors
10 years partnering with organisations
Organisations we've helped enact change
Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust
"The Cultural Ambassador training was fundamental to my role in maintaining the fair process for my colleagues and for my own growth over time"
In 2014 at a local level, activists from the Global Majority carried out a Freedom of Information request to several NHS Trusts in the West Midlands region. Analysis of this data alerted RCN West Midlands to the over-representation of Global Majority staff in the employee relation process. This is as true today as it was then as the regular reports of the Workforce Race Equality Standards (WRES) and the Workforce Disability Equality Standards (WDES) reports demonstrate.
In addition, further research by Roger Kline, Discrimination by Appointment and Snowy White Peaks of the NHS also captured the disproportionate impact on staff from the Global Majority in relation to recruitment, appointment, development, and progression in the NHS. Furthermore, the Too Hot to Handle 2024 and Broken Ladders – The Myth of meritocracy for women in the workplace in 2024 shows that there remain serious issues in supporting, reporting, and management of discrimination in the workplace effectively.
To support organisations in addressing these issues, the RCN developed an innovative programme in collaboration with its West Midlands Global Majority Stakeholder Group.
The Cultural Ambassador (CA) programme is designed to support organisations to reduce the occurrence of discrimination in employment relations and recruitment processes by implementing policy changes and embedding CAs as an integral part of these processes. Volunteers from the organisation are trained to identify and explore potential areas of bias or discrimination that may negatively impact the outcome of the processes. The CA’s role is to be curious about potential issues, make them transparent, and create space for dialogue to establish the potential impact on the outcome.
Although the programme was initially designed to address potential discrimination for Global Majority staff in the NHS and the employment relations process, it has been adapted to meet the needs of public, private, and voluntary sector organisations, and expanded to cover all protected characteristics in both the employment relations and recruitment processes.
Equity, diversity and inclusion at the RCN
Equity is our clear ambition. Diversity is our underused asset. Inclusion is our future.
We're committed to making equity and inclusion an everyday reality for all our members. This means disrupting patterns of inequality and discrimination wherever we find them.
