Why we need support

Introduction

This section considers the support needed to sustain intersectional practice. 

Lived experience of the need for intersectional support 

In our Change Project session on intersectionality for practitioners with lived experience of being minoritised because of race, participants talked about the experience of living only part of their identity. The themes that emerged were of isolation and exhaustion as people navigated a daily context full of assumptions and barriers.  

The way the world is set up fragments people, for example, when choosing their clothes. One participant said:

Participants talked about the way that colleagues questioned their food, their hair and other aspects of their identity. They described ‘being left out of the clique’ as a vehicle of inequity.  

The participants saw intersectionality as a way of giving language to something that needs to be voiced. Intersectionality enables someone’s full experience and identity to be acknowledged, and the discrimination that they encounter to be named.

The importance of compassion

Intersectionality is hard work. It requires support. The powerful analogy of an intersection in a road network (Nayak, 2022) helps us to think about the pressure that is experienced because of the roads and traffic converging on someone. It’s important to remember that the crash and the compound injury can also happen to people who work in adult social care, both in relation to their personal life and their professional roles.   

We are educated and socialised into thinking in categories and divisions. A lot of effort goes into society teaching us not to think intersectionally. So when we start to look at intersectionality, it seems complicated. Yet in reality, it’s quite a simple framework – it’s just that we’re not used to it. So we need to unlearn one way of looking at the world and learn another.  

Using the intersectional lens is also emotional work. It can feel overwhelming to integrate all the parts of our identity or someone else’s identity (Lorde, 1980). It is also exhausting to deal with the multiple vehicles of oppression. People may react to the trauma of inequity, or they may become frightened of engaging with it in case it can’t be changed.  

Compassion enhances and deepens our actions to increase equity. But intersectional compassion requires rigour. What’s needed isn’t a general, fuzzy compassion – rather, it’s a clear-sighted understanding assisted by allyship. And this requires us to be in touch with our own feelings in order to empower others.  

Once we are in touch with our feelings, we can think about how we practise in ways that use our emotions. Using an intersectional lens enables our relationships at work to be more human and more resonant. It enables us to be open to the situated knowledge that we and others have so that our interactions can be more impactful. This is particularly useful in supervision and for critical reflection.

The tool below considers the support you have and need to sustain your
intersectional practice. 

Making space for intersectionality

Safe spaces are an essential requirement for having meaningful conversations. Such conversations require time, lack of distraction and, most importantly, trust. Trust-building should be led by those with power. This may be role power, professional power or personal power. It’s not just about who has the job title, and this section isn’t just in relation to managers, leaders, and supervisors. It is important not to leave the conversation to the person with lived experience or to only have the conversation when things are going wrong; this should be a regular conversation.

It is important to be comfortable to ask and not to be afraid to get it wrong. Educating yourself is part of the journey to understanding. To make a difference, challenge will be part of the conversation. This can be done with attention to the principles set out in the introduction to this resource. It’s in the moments when we speak up that we effect change.

Important elements of good working conditions are vital to creating the time and space to make personal and organisational change. These include: professional development opportunities; reflective supervision; peer support; time for self-care; and role modelling of this way of working by leaders.

The tool below aims to help you hold reflective conversations with colleagues, open up space to share experiences, and consider these through the lens of intersectionality.