Anti-Racism
Practical anti-racism training to help staff understand how racism operates, recognise bias and privilege, challenge racism and take meaningful action.
Practical anti-racism training to help staff understand how racism operates, recognise bias and privilege, challenge racism and take meaningful action.
Becoming actively anti-racist means recognising how racism operates — individually, socially and institutionally — and taking deliberate steps to challenge it. This practical course helps delegates understand racism, recognise bias and privilege, respond to racist behaviour and subtle exclusion, and develop the confidence to contribute to meaningful change.
Many people would describe themselves as “not racist”. Anti-racism asks us to go further.
It means developing the awareness to recognise racism when it occurs, understanding how inequality can be sustained through everyday behaviours, decisions and systems, and being prepared to challenge rather than remain silent.
Racism is not always obvious or intentional. It can be overt or subtle, interpersonal or institutional. It can appear through stereotypes and discriminatory behaviour, but also through assumptions, unequal expectations, exclusion, silence and practices that create different outcomes for different racial and ethnic groups.
This course creates space for honest discussion and reflection while equipping delegates with practical ways to recognise racism, examine their own role and respond constructively when racism or racial inequality occurs.
Develop the awareness to recognise overt and subtle racism, racial bias, stereotypes, microaggressions and patterns of exclusion or inequality.
Explore assumptions, privilege, lived experience and the difference between our intentions and the impact our words, behaviours and decisions may have on others.
Build confidence to respond to racist comments, behaviours and practices, challenge assumptions and navigate uncomfortable conversations constructively.
Move beyond awareness by identifying practical actions that support racial equality, inclusion, allyship and positive change in everyday workplace practice.
Racism is sometimes understood only as deliberately hostile behaviour between individuals. While overt racial abuse and discrimination remain important concerns, racism can also operate in less visible ways.
The course helps delegates explore how racism can operate through individual behaviour, everyday interactions, organisational practices and wider systems and structures.
Racism can occur through the words, behaviours, assumptions and decisions of individuals.
What happens between people?
Policies, practices and organisational cultures can create or sustain racial disadvantage, including where discrimination was not the stated intention.
What happens through organisations?
Historic and interconnected inequalities can shape opportunities, experiences and outcomes across institutions and wider society.
What patterns do we see across systems?
Some racism is explicit and easily recognised. Other experiences can be subtle, repeated or dismissed as insignificant in isolation.
Delegates explore overt and covert racism, stereotypes, racial bias, microaggressions and subtle acts of exclusion, considering both the behaviour itself and the cumulative impact that repeated experiences can have.
Explicit racial abuse, discriminatory treatment, racist comments or behaviour that is clearly connected to race or ethnicity.
Stereotypes, assumptions, exclusion, inappropriate comments or everyday behaviours that may communicate difference, inferiority or lack of belonging.
Individual incidents may be minimised, but repeated experiences can have a significant effect on belonging, wellbeing, confidence and participation.
People do not always intend to cause harm. However, good intentions do not automatically prevent our words, behaviours or decisions from having a negative impact.
Anti-racist practice requires us to be able to listen when somebody describes an experience of racism or exclusion without immediately focusing on whether harm was intended.
“I didn't mean it that way” can explain intention — but it does not, by itself, resolve impact.
Delegates explore how curiosity, listening and accountability can help us respond more constructively when intention and impact are different.
Conversations about privilege can sometimes become defensive because privilege is interpreted as meaning that somebody has had an easy life or has never experienced disadvantage.
That is not what privilege means in this context.
The course explores how race can shape the barriers people are more or less likely to encounter, while recognising that people's lives are also influenced by many other aspects of identity, experience and circumstance.
Understanding how being White can mean that race is less likely to create particular barriers, disadvantages or forms of scrutiny in everyday life.
Exploring why conversations about racism can trigger discomfort, defensiveness, withdrawal or a shift of attention away from the issue being raised.
Considering the difference between meaningful solidarity and approaches that centre the helper, reinforce unequal power or speak over the people being supported.
People who experience racism are not all the same, and no individual can speak for an entire racial or ethnic group.
Anti-racist practice requires us to listen to people's experiences without expecting them to educate others, prove that racism occurred or represent everybody who shares a particular identity.
The course encourages delegates to listen with curiosity, recognise different experiences within and between communities, and avoid replacing lived experience with assumptions about what somebody “must” think or feel.
Recognising racism is important, but anti-racism also requires action. Delegates explore different ways of responding depending on the situation, their role and what is safe and appropriate.
A COLLEAGUE SAYS
You might ask:
“What makes that funny, and how do you think it might land for somebody hearing it?”
SOMEBODY SAYS
You might explore:
“Could recognising race and people's different experiences actually help us understand inequality more effectively?”
AFTER A CONCERN
You might ask:
“Can we consider the impact as well as the intention, and what needs to happen now?”
There is no single script for challenging racism. What is appropriate will depend on the behaviour, the people involved, power relationships, the workplace context and considerations of safety.
Delegates explore practical options including:
By the end of the course, delegates should be better able to:
Anti-racism is relevant across an organisation. This course is suitable for employees at all levels who want to develop their understanding of racism and build the confidence to contribute to more inclusive workplace cultures.
It can be particularly valuable for:
No previous anti-racism training is required. The course can be tailored to reflect your organisation, sector, workforce and existing equality priorities.
This course provides a broad foundation in anti-racism. We also offer specialist programmes where a particular role, setting or organisational priority requires a different focus.
For organisations wanting to develop practical allyship, including how people can use their voice, influence and privilege to support racial equality.
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For leaders who need to understand their responsibility, influence and accountability for creating and sustaining anti-racist workplace cultures.
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For organisations ready to move beyond individual awareness and examine culture, systems, policies, accountability and organisational change.
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All our courses are tailored to ensure the training reflects your organisation, sector, workforce and equality priorities.
The course can be delivered face-to-face or online via Zoom or Teams.
To support participation, discussion and interaction, we recommend the following group sizes per session:
Need to train a larger workforce? No problem. We regularly work with organisations that need to train larger numbers of employees. Where appropriate, training can be delivered across multiple sessions to ensure everyone receives the same high-quality, interactive learning experience. We can develop a delivery programme to suit your workforce size, locations and timescales.
Please note: the half-day rate is not always available for face-to-face sessions.
Over 25 years' experience delivering equality, diversity and inclusion training, consultancy and professional development.
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