Equal opportunities and accessibility

Background,l objectives and future developments

The Bureau development work over the past three years has led a significant expansion and improvement in advice services to people with mental health problems and asylum seekers and refugees. This has all been done on the basis of short-term funding, which is due to run out in 2001. Our two main priorities are

• Obtain renewed funding for the Refugee Advice Project beyond March 2001 to sustain and improve our range of services to the Refugee Community.
• Obtain renewed funding for the Mental Health Project beyond October 2001 to sustain and improve the range of services to the users of Mental Health Services.
• Recruit volunteers for our Disability Benefit Form-Filling Project to improve our services to people with both physical and mental health problems.
• Improve access and take-up of our services by residents who are in (low-paid) employment.

Client profile indicates that we have been less successful in targeting ‘in work’ poverty issues (only 23% of our users are employed). Our evening services have been reinstated and an appointment system introduced. Telephone hours have been extended to improve access for people in work. Effectiveness in increasing % of users in paid employment to be monitored through client profiling.

Staff Team composition

The staff team composition (paid or voluntary) should reflect so far as is possible the client profile we aim to serve. Equality action in this case includes the recruitment of staff with particular language skills (though there are legal restraints to paid recruitment).

The language base of the staff team is reviewed every year against client need. The launch of an expanded version of our Refugee Advice Project has extended the number of languages we are able to offer, which now include: Arabic, Bengali, French, Hindi, Polish, Punjabi, Russian, Somali, Spanish, Urdu and Yoroba.

Membership of the Board of Directors

A census of the current Board membership was carried out in November 2000 and a special working party of Board members produced a report in January 2001 with recommendations for change (more details are available from LCAB).

Action plan

Other areas have been identified with scope for development and wider accessibility:

• Review composition of staff team
• Review of age of staff/volunteers
• Review of membership of the Board

Background information page
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