CPFT is committed to supporting and developing our ethnic minority staff. To enable us to successfully achieve this we have launched a new EM Network for our ethnic minority staff. The aim of the network is to:

• Support ethnic minority staff
• Understand any organisational barriers to career development, ethnic minority staff attaining leadership roles and be able to develop recommendations to promote leadership diversity
• Assist in identifying development needs of ethnic minority staff
• Educate and develop skills and confidence in ethnic minority staff
• Celebrate diversity and promote success
• Share knowledge and experience
• Develop increased awareness of benefits of diversity for the organisation and all staff

Some of the benefits of a EM Network are:

• To aid recruitment and retention of ethnic minority staff
• To improve customer satisfaction and perception of services (culturally diverse staff and service users)
• To provide a forum to highlight common workplace issues for the organisation to address
• To provide a forum for information sharing on access to training and development
• To influence and support CPFT policy and practice
• To celebrate achievements
• To increase ethnic minority staff satisfaction and motivation
• To promote integrated working, sharing information and improved productivity
• To provide access to ethnic minority role models to build confidence and inspire individuals
• To contribute to awareness training of staff in special needs of ethnic minority service users (equality and diversity training)
• To provide a forum to highlight ethnic minority issues for the organisation to promote

For further information about the EM Network, contact Elaine Bailey on 01223 726782

EM Network launch success

CPFT successfully launched its EM Network in December with more than 50 staff from our ethnic minority community or staff with an interest in this area attending.

The event was opened by Karen Bell, Chief Executive, who confirmed CPFT's commitment to the development of the EM Network and its importance for ourethnic minority staff. Colleagues from Hertfordshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust attended and gave a presentation on how they have achieved success within their Trust. Shama Kanwar, a community development worker in Peterborough, also spoke to the group on her experiences of EM Networks in the prison service and the benefits she gained from such a network.

The group then participated in action planning for the future development of CPFT's network, which was a positive session with valuable contributions, thoughts and actions from staff to be able to take this forward.

It was clear that there is support from staff and CPFT for such an important development and as a result of the event a EM Network committee has been formed made up from ethnic minority staff.