Note on personal well-being
Please use this resource in a way that feels right for you and look after your well-being. Learning about racial equity, privilege, inequality, and discrimination can be hard and may bring up strong emotions. It is normal to feel uncomfortable, defensive, tired, or emotional when thinking about these issues.
You are in control of your engagement:
- Go at your own pace: Take breaks whenever you need. You can decide how much you want to participate, what you write down, and whether you want to share your thoughts with others.
- If something feels overwhelming, pause, take a slow breath, or step away for a while.
- Your safety comes first: If you feel upset, hurt, or burned out, please take a step back and seek support.
If you need help right now, please go to our "Need Help Now - Emergency" section. [insert anchor link]
Work on racial equity is both personal and collective. You do not have to deal with tough feelings alone. If you need help, you can reach out rusing the options below:
1. Immediate safety, harm boundaries and reporting
Sometimes, friction and tension happen in equity work. But hate crimes, threats, or harassment are never okay and are against the law.
- Police and emergency services: If you or someone else is in immediate danger or facing harassment or hate speech:
- Call 999 for emergency police intervention.
- Call 101 or report online at True Visionto report hate crimes that are not emergencies.
- Legal and rights advice:
2. Culturally informed and racially inclusive support
- BAATN: Find Black, African, Asian, and Caribbean counsellors and therapists across the UK: https://www.baatn.org.uk/
- Black Minds Matter UK: Connects Black people and families with free mental health services and Black therapists: blackmindsmatteruk.com
3. General mental health support
4. Workplace and institutional support
- Check your workplace HR portal for private counselling services, if available.
- Contact your trade union representatives for help with workplace discrimination, safety, or harm.
- Use peer networks to talk with trusted colleagues.
Framing of this resource
What this resource is, and what it is not
Use this resource to engage more thoughtfully with racial equity in your public engagement practice.
This is not a resource you finish, but one you return to. Racial equity work does not end when you read a guide or attend training. It is an ongoing practice of noticing, listening, and acting differently.
The NCCPE defines public engagement as a two-way process built on listening and mutual benefit. Racial equity practice challenges and changes structures that sustain systemic racism. Keep both considerations in mind as you use this resource.
This resource was developed alongside practitioners, community partners, and racial equity experts; learn more about that process in the “How this resource was created” section.
How to use this resource
Working toward racial equity requires asking what values guide our work, whose interests we prioritise, what we're willing to change, and when good intentions don't lead to fair outcomes.
If you are unsure where to start, use the orientation questionnaire to find the most relevant content for your situation.
You can also explore the resource in your own way, at your own pace.
Authors’ approach to learning and change
Learn continuously: Remember that racial equity work is ongoing. Never say you have “finished.” As contexts shift and new challenges arise, reconsider what you learned yesterday. Use this resource to reflect and revise continuously.
Consider context and relationships: No single formula, approach, or checklist can make your public engagement project racially equitable in every setting. What helps in one institution, community, or context may not help in another. Every context is different and draws on diverse histories, relationships, and power dynamics. Use tools, checklists, and frameworks to support your thinking, but do not let them replace attention to the specific people, histories, and power dynamics before you. Adapt this resource; do not apply it prescriptively.
Use words to guide practice: The language you use shapes what you can see, name, and discuss. Learn terminology as a starting point, not the end of this resource. Use words only when they change what you do. Treat language as evolving and contested, and revisit terms rather than treating them as fixed. Find a useful set of terminology and its meanings in the Terminology section [LINK].
Use your knowledge with humility: Your professional or academic expertise matters, but it is not a substitute for someone else’s lived experience. Recognise the limits of what you know. Hold your expertise alongside curiosity and humility, and cultivate a willingness to listen, unlearn, and share power.
Use two related ideas to support this practice: cultural humility and epistemic humility. Practice epistemic humility by reflecting critically on beliefs, biases, and assumptions, and being willing to change them. Practice cultural humility as a lifelong practice of self-reflection and attention to power.
Work toward a more just world: Treat this commitment as concrete, not abstract. Let it shape your decisions about agendas, partnerships, resources, and who has influence. Ask hard questions about your practice. What values guide your decisions? Whose interests are prioritised? What are you willing to change? Notice when good intentions do not lead to fair outcomes, and be willing to change course.
This resource invites you to consider your sphere of influence, however large or small, and how it affects those around you.
Emily, Siddharth and Vanessa |
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