In this post, Allie (CEO) and Christina (Project Development Officer) describe our partnership with LGBT Youth Scotland (LGBTYS)  and our work towards earning the LGBTYS charter mark.

At Fast Forward we are passionate about making the work we do inclusive. That’s why we are partnering with LGBT Youth Scotland to ensure we are as welcoming and supportive for folks in the LGBTQIA+ community as possible.

To do this, we’ve agreed to work towards fulfilling the LGBT Charter for Organisations:

“Being awarded our LGBT Charter enables you to send a positive message, with confidence, that your organisation is a champion of LGBT inclusion where LGBT employees, customers, or service users will be safe, supported and included.”

LGBT Youth Scotland

Achieving the charter mark is part of an ongoing process we’ll be working towards over the next 18 months. So far, we have set up an action plan to track our progress in key areas, such as:

• Staff training
  Fast Forward staff will complete a course of training on LGBT awareness. This will ensure that we are able to support colleagues and people we work with as best we can.
• Review of Employee Handbook and related policies
  We will review all our workplace policies to ensure that they use gender neutral language. We’ll also include a policy to share pronouns where appropriate.
• Sharing pronouns proactively
  We’ll be including pronouns (e.g. she/her, they/them, he/him) on our new staff badges, attached to our new rainbow lanyards! We will also confirm pronouns at the start of any external sessions or meetings. Sharing pronouns is not only useful as information about how we prefer to be addressed, it also demonstrates that we are allies.
• Marking LGBT cultural events
  We will celebrate key LGBT cultural events such as Pride by attending in person, and spreading the word through our social media platforms.
• Working with LGBTYS’ groups of young people
  We have agreed to deliver workshops on risk-taking behaviours for young people who attend LGBTYS groups. We will also deliver training sessions for LGBTYS staff members.
• Making our spaces welcoming
  We want our spaces to be as visibly welcoming for people in the LGBT community as possible, both online and in person! We are displaying the Progress Pride flag prominently in our office, and posters and leaflets for services designed for LGBT young people. In our online spaces, we are proud to list LGBTYS as one of our partners. We will also use inclusive imagery and language, and explicitly state our commitment to inclusivity and intolerance of discrimination.

One of the key resources we’re using to inform our action plan is the LGBT Charter Rights. It’s designed to safeguard the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people, and draws on international, UK, and Scottish human rights legislation.

This is only the first step in our journey – watch this space for updates on our progress!