We gave you an account of a busy and exhilarating day of meetings in London during March. As this sparked some interest among you we decided to provide occasional similar updates. The idea is to give you a flavour of what we are focusing on and who we are talking to.

Apart from the usual delivery of workshops and coaching sessions, the month of May started with an excellent introductory meeting with Warren Escadale, the Chief Executive of Voluntary Service North West (VSNW). We talked about addressing inequality across Greater Manchester and asset-based and preventative approaches to well-being which can reduce the burden on acute treatment. As well as challenges, we discussed how interventions like Result CIC’s could contribute to this work.

The discussions will no doubt continue. Read about coaching as prevention in Hormoz’s blog.

Our meetings have continued with a follow up visit to Channel 4 in London. They are keen to discuss ways to support in-house disabled staff, as well as general diversity areas within and outside the organisation. This includes looking at how to work with small independent suppliers who can find addressing some of these issues demanding.

The visit to London was completed by discussions with Jonathan Badyal at the Department of Culture, Media and Sport.  Jonathan described the government’s strategy for greater diversity in the culture sector and how this makes economic and social sense. We talked about how a combination of personal development training from people with live experience of diversity and coaching to develop your own best strategy, can support growth of confident, diverse role models.

After going to press we will have two important meetings, the first of which is with the University of Manchester.

We will be developing further ideas on training and coaching managers who work with diverse staff. This is a continuation of discussions following our well-established successful workshops for disabled staff (Achieving your Potential).

The second meeting is with BBC North following our involvement in February in their week long Divercity event held at their Media City location, where we ran 1-1 coaching sessions for some disabled staff.

So another busy and interesting month; you will no doubt be hearing more about some of the outcomes of these meetings!