Equality and human rights
Equality is one of our core values at Turning Point and we are committed to providing high quality person centred services to all who need them, reflecting and responding to the diversity of the communities we serve.
We treat everyone who works with or for Turning Point, and those who use our services with dignity, equality, respect, fairness and autonomy. We challenge discrimination wherever it arises. We foster an environment in which everyone is valued equally and supported so they can participate with confidence.
We promote equality and human rights in all that we do and through the work we do in partnership with others.
Our corporate equality and human rights policy
At Turning Point we have a corporate policy in which we have set ourselves eight equality and human rights objectives. These cover our service delivery and employment as well as the functions which support our organisation. If you would like to read a copy of the policy please contact us on info@turning-point.co.uk
Turning Point and the public equality duties
For race, gender and disability, there is a statutory public duty to promote equality which applies to public authorities.
As we are commissioned to provide our services by different public authorities - mostly from the health sector, central or local government - we regard the public equality duties as very much part of our business.
We have evaluated our duties under the equality and human rights legislation and defined them under the following four areas: the race equality duty, the gender equality duty, the disability equality duty and the new public duty which will include the strands of age, religion or belief and sexual orientation.
Turning Point and human rights
As with the public equality duties, we take our responsibilities for human rights very seriously.
Bringing equality and diversity together with human rights in our policy and strategy, has provided us with a sound unifying ethos to underpin our work. Whilst we recognise the equality issues which uniquely affect the groups protected by law against discrimination, we find that an approach led by the human rights principles of dignity, equality, respect, fairness and autonomy works well for us and complements our overarching person centred approach. This helps us to focus on the actual needs of an individual rather than their perceived needs as a member of a particular group.
These principles run through many aspects of our work already and are reflected in our core values, our code of conduct, our staff employment policies and our service standards.
Equality and human rights impact assessment
One of the most effective ways of making a difference for our staff and service users is by making sure that we factor equality and human rights into our policies and service design from the start.
We have developed an equality and human rights impact assessment tool which will help us to develop our new policies and services.
We will be reviewing our existing policies over time and using the tool to ensure we have done everything we can to promote equality and human rights for our staff and service users.
Equality and human rights for our staff
We have a working environment for staff where we treat each other with dignity, equality, respect, fairness and autonomy, and where we value diversity.
We are working towards being an organisation which reflects the diversity of the communities which we serve, through recruitment and by supporting and developing our staff.
To read more about working for us go to our recruitment website Turning Point CareersHub. Turning Point CareersHub (opens in new window)