Many partners across South Yorkshire provide staff networks supporting people with protected characteristic and form groups around race, disability, and the LGBTQ+ community and many others. They are a safe place for staff to come together share their experiences, organise and campaign for positive change, and meet with allies, share knowledge and increase awareness of their communities. Networks play a pivotal role in how organisations make strategic improvements and embrace the diversity of their teams. Most networks are for those with lived experience of their subject area and for allies who want to be part of supporting positive changes in their organisations. Networks also work closely with their specific execute sponsor to ensure that their concerns and ideas are heard by senior leaders.
In September 2022 we brought staff together to start conversations and offered further support, with contributions from our keynote speaker and champion of staff networks, Cherron Inko-Tariah, a leading national voice in this area.
In November 2024 we reconnected staff networks across South Yorkshire’s health and care system with our Staff Networks: Connect and Empower event. One hundred people involved in the array of networks offered across the SY ICS came together to share good practice and successes achieved, to workshop their challenges and to share their staff network journeys with one another. One of the actions to come out of that event was the SY ICS Staff network Handbook that can be viewed below. We are also maintaining the connections made at this event by holding biannual Staff Network Chairs meetings for those in health and care. If you are a network chair and would like to join these meetings, please email - syicb-sheffield.hwb@nhs.net
A film was produced by Rodman Films after the event to get across the benefits of a staff network for individuals and for organisations.