1.            Army Teamwork. The Army culture is built upon strong values, high standards and the ‘golden thread’ of belonging; it is essential that every member of the Army feels included and part of the team. As an inclusive employer, the Army has a strong network of diversity champions and employee support networks to ensure an inclusive environment for all our personnel and employee communication. Click here for links for Defnet Article and army.mod.uk.

2.            Improving Sexual Orientation Declarations. The Army continues to lag behind the other services and most external organisations with our sexual orientation declarations. This is completed on JPA and currently only 20.5% of regular personnel and 5.7% of reserve personnel have completed their declarations. A letter providing the background and FAQs that was distributed to COs last year, can be found here. Please raise awareness and understanding of this requirement as well as emphasising the confidentiality of the process.

3.            Wed 3 Mar 21 1930hrs Army Parents’ Network Webinar – Special Educational Needs. The Army Parents Network will hold the 4th Webinar in their series on Wed 3 Mar 21 at 1930. The event will be delivered by a specialist in Special Educational Needs, Sophie Scott. Sophie is a Special Educational needs tutor in the Salisbury area and you can find more details of what she does at http://www.tadahsen.co.uk/.

This webinar is open to all serving individuals and their families and will look to cover the following topics:

  • Early recognition of different SEN.
  • How SEN are misdiagnosed.
  • SEN support and how it varies from school to school.
  • Different organisations that come into schools to help and how to ask for them / access the support.
  • EHCPs / Myplans etc and how to get them so that the support moves when children move schools.
  • Legal options if you do not get the support that you think your child needs.

If people would like to attend the session, please could I ask them to complete the form at the following LINK.

4.            D&I(A) D&I Discussion – Let’s Talk About Race. Many thanks to those that attended the Business in the Community session last week. Some great discussion and lots to reflect on and take forward into units. The BITC presentation is here (Modnet). The Army’s supporting pamphlet, Let’s Talk About Race in the Army, is here (Modnet).

Further Reading:

Army HQ D&I Policy Team 

ArmyPers-Pol-Diversity@mod.gov.uk 

D&I Sharepoint 

Defence Connect