The NHS Race and Health Observatory has published 7 Principles of Anti-Racism for NHS Workplaces. The programme aims to support the use of research, engagement and evidence to reduce inequalities in access, outcomes and experience between staff of different races and ethnicities in the NHS.

Signed by nine UK health and social care regulators, including Social Work England, the principles focus on naming racism, valuing lived experience, leadership, collaboration, data, accountability and transparency. For safeguarding organisations, the question is how these principles become visible in everyday practice.

In a previous blog, I explored a pattern I have seen across 26 years in safeguarding and public service: Global Majority practitioners questioning whether difficult workplace experiences are ‘just them’, while navigating issues of visibility, progression, belonging and psychological safety.

Through my professional experience, I have found that coaching one social worker at a time, while valuable, will never be enough if the same themes continue to appear across students, practitioners, managers and senior leaders. At some point, the conversation has to move from individual resilience to organisational learning.

Anti-racism, psychological safety and wellbeing

The link between anti-racism and safeguarding practice matters. Safeguarding work relies on reflection, professional judgement, trust, emotional presence and the ability to raise concerns safely. If practitioners do not feel psychologically safe, if workplace harm is minimised, or if racism cannot be named without fear of consequence, it can affect staff wellbeing. It can also impact the quality of organisational learning and decision-making.

For Black and Global Majority safeguarding professionals, the issues may include racialised harm, isolation, unequal scrutiny, stalled progression and the emotional labour of remaining composed in systems that have not always protected them. These experiences are not separate from practice. They shape retention, leadership pathways and the ability to thrive within the workforce.

Social Work England’s fair referral principles offer one example of how fairness can begin to move from value to process. They encourage employers to consider context, proportionality, local resolution, organisational culture and potential bias before raising a fitness to practise concern. This matters because anti-racism must be embedded in how decisions are made, not only in what organisations say they believe.

Addressing inequity and promoting visibility

The next phase of this work should be practical, reflective and measurable. Organisations need to ask how anti-racism is showing up in supervision, progression, workforce data, leadership development, complaints, referrals and responses to workplace harm.

This is central to the work of Black & Diverse Safeguarding Professionals Conference & Awards (BDSC). BDSC was created to increase visibility, recognition and influence for Black and Global Majority safeguarding professionals, but also to create a space where workforce wellbeing, race equity, leadership and safer systems can be explored honestly.

The event provides a live national space for this conversation. It brings together practitioners, leaders, educators, organisations and community voices to consider what safer, fairer and more accountable safeguarding systems should look like. I’m pleased that Research in Practice will be a part of the conversations at this year’s event on 19 September. 

If safeguarding systems are to protect others effectively, they must also protect, hear and value the professionals working within them. Anti-racism, workforce wellbeing and safer safeguarding practice should not sit in separate conversations. They are connected, and the sector’s response should reflect that.

The shared principles are welcome because they create a national opening. The challenge now is to use that opening well.