Curo News

On Stephen Lawrence Day, let’s think about the part we all play in creating a society in which everyone can flourish

Thu, 22 Apr 2021 09:38:37 Z

Today, 22 April, is #StephenLawrenceDay where we remember and celebrate the life of this young man whose life was tragically taken. It is one of the most high-profile racial killings in UK history – the resulting investigation and Macpherson report led to significant changes in attitude surrounding institutional racism, police procedure and to the partial revocation of double jeopardy laws.

I am currently reading Baroness Doreen Lawrence’s book ‘And Still I Rise’ which details the family's own experiences of being treated with suspicion from the outset, rather than with compassion, and of being denied the highest level of professional competence to which they were entitled. Along with the stereotyping and racial profiling by the police of Duwayne Brooks, who was with Stephen Lawrence at the time of the murder.

Stephen’s legacy has had an influence across Britain and even locally; my fantastic friend Pepe Hart was a teacher in Radstock. She was the only Asian Primary Head in Bath & North East Somerset and she introduced an Anti-Racist Curriculum long before anyone was talking about it.

She invited Baroness Doreen Lawrence to her school. Pepe says in her blog “she educated our children in a beautiful and unique way. We saw first-hand how the evils of racism can destroy lives. Our children were captivated and wanted change to happen. They wanted to be part of stamping out racism.”

The school set up Stephen Lawrence room and a statue (pictured) in honour of this talented young man who wanted to be an architect but was needlessly killed before he could fulfil his full potential.

The sensitive way they delivered the story through poetry, dance, art and drama meant the whole community shared the experience.

Pepe has worked with the Stephen Lawrence Day Foundation and helped to develop an anti-racist package of learning which can be rolled out to other schools. She says “Stephen’s death is a tragic reminder of the vital need to challenge injustice for the greater good. We should all remember all that Stephen would most certainly have brought to the world. A talented teenager murdered for the colour of his skin. Celebrating Stephen today and always means that out of darkness comes light.”

Stephen Lawrence Day - A Legacy of Change – this short video says it all.

Pepe and I regularly talk about Stephen on our lockdown walks and I really admire how she creatively used his tragic story to deliver an anti-racist message to young children in a majority-white rural school.

This week has also seen the conviction of Derek Chauvin who killed George Floyd. These high-profile hate crimes are not the only ones, but we must make sure they are the last ones.

Alongside all this the recent Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities report argues that institutional racism is no longer an issue in the Britain, but we all know in our hearts that this is not true… yet.

So; let’s commit to using the opportunity that Stephen Lawrence Day gives us to think about the part we all play in creating a society in which everyone can flourish.

At Curo, we must think about how our own systems and processes can create inequalities or unfair advantage and make changes whenever we can. Every Curo colleague should have received hate crime training which gives us all a chance to discuss this issue and ask questions. Please remember language is not the problem – I know it feels like terms are changing every five minutes – it’s the intention behind what you say. If you see or hear anything that is discriminatory ‘call it out’.

Curo’s new customer service plan and the review of how we conduct equality impact assessments (EIAs) give us all at Curo an opportunity to deliver transformational services to our diverse customers. My message to every Curo colleague is: the next time you need to make a decision which affects people ‘check yourself’, as my mum would say, and question those unconscious biases.

This is a journey, but we can get there.

Three Curo colleagues share their experiences of hate crime

Tue, 19 Jan 2021 11:02:43 Z

Curo colleagues Ayesha, Jamal and Judith share their own experiences of hate crime as housing association employees.

At Curo we take a zero-tolerance approach to hate crime:

To find out more about hate crime and what to do if you witness or experience it, visit the hate crime section of our ASB Toolkit here.
Find out what Curo customers told us about their experiences of hate crime, and what we're doing as a result.

Hate crime survey findings to strengthen Curo’s zero tolerance approach

Fri, 04 Dec 2020 07:00:00 Z

In October, as part of Hate Crime Awareness Week, we launched a survey to better understand our customers’ knowledge and experiences of hate crime.

Thanks to everyone who took part. We take a zero-tolerance approach to hate crime at Curo and your feedback is helping us shape our approach to hate crime – for starters we will:

Make reporting hate crime easier for our customers
Improve our colleague training so we respond quicker to hate crime reports
Work closely with Avon & Somerset Police to strengthen our joint hate crime approach
Continue promoting our zero tolerance to hate crime behaviour and take action where required
Ask for customer feedback on our improved approach to hate crime

What did you tell us?

[click infographic to enlarge]

Our survey indicates a high level of awareness of hate crime among Curo residents, with 87% of respondents stating that they know what hate crime is.

A hate crime is any offence committed against person or property which is motivated by the offender's hatred of people because they are seen as being different.

The findings suggest that many incidents of hate crime aren’t being reported, largely because people don’t know how to report them. Around 40% of people don’t know how to report hate crime, whether victim or not.

Generally, those who reported hate crime to Curo felt well supported. One respondent commented: “The contact team member was very supportive and interested in what I had to say but also knowledgeable about what would happen next. I felt the person being victimised would get the help he needed.”

However, 37% said they hadn’t received adequate, or any, support when reporting their hate crime. That tells us there’s a clear need to offer better support to both victims and witnesses of hate crime.

Another clear theme is that people want to find out more about Curo’s approach to tackling hate crime. 60% of all respondents wanted more information and, of those who didn’t know what hate crime was, that figure climbed to 77%.

Ours was a relatively small survey and it’s worth noting that these results reflect the situation in Bath & North East Somerset (B&NES) more than the other authorities where we work, with 80% of responses from B&NES residents. It is also possible that people who have experienced hate crime were more inclined to take part in this survey and more aware of hate crime.

This in no way lessens the importance of the data and the rich feedback that customers have given, and we’ve already started to use this invaluable information within Curo:

The findings are informing our internal processes including how we train colleagues across Curo. We want every colleague to understand what hate crime looks like, to think carefully about our own language and attitudes, to know how to report it, and to take action if they witness incidents.
We plan to share anonymised findings with our partners, for example at Avon & Somerset Police and B&NES Council, so that we can strengthen our joint approach to tackling hate crime.
We will continue to raise awareness of hate crime and our processes with residents and other stakeholders like local councillors. We recently launched the Curo Anti-social Behaviour Toolkit on our website which sets out what to do if you witness or experience hate crime, and our Tenancy Compliance Team have recorded a Curo Hot Topic conversation where they describe our zero tolerance approach to hate crime in detail. We also joined forces with Stand Against Racism & Inequality’s powerful hate crime awareness campaign.

To learn more about hate crime, what to do if you witness or experience it, and how we will support Curo customers:

Hate Crime Awareness Week

Fri, 09 Oct 2020 12:34:10 Z

National Hate Crime Awareness Week is happening from the 10th – 17th October 2020. Listen to Andrew and Natalie from Curo's Tenancy Compliance Team talk about the issue in our latest Hot Topics video.

Here at Curo we have a zero-tolerance approach to Hate Crime. We’re interested to hear from you, our customers, what you know about Hate Crime and whether you’ve experienced or witnessed it. We’ll use your feedback to improve our approach to Hate Crime. Please take our survey by clicking here: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/hate-crime-awareness

To find out how you can report hate crime, please click here.

For more info please click here: https://www.stophateuk.org/hate-crime-awareness-week/