Introduction to CHAWREC Shantele Janes, Cheshire, Halton & Warrington Race & Equality Centre

Bit of History We were originally part of a wider network of organisations across the UK set up by the Commission for Racial Equality under the Race Relations Act to act as grassroots ‘eyes and ears’ Community Relations Councils in the 70s, very much about advocating for BME communities, voicing the local people’s views In the 80s they moved towards offering services and became Racial Equality Councils We were established after consultation with the Commission in 1995, so fairly new compared to others

Aims & Objectives All set up with the same aims and objectives and the same areas of work. The move towards a generic equality agenda led many Race Equality Councils to reconsider their aims, we widened our remit but kept race as our specialism, pledging to work more collaboratively with other equality organisations Our aim is to ‘eliminate discrimination, particularly race discrimination, promote equality of opportunity and good relations.’ – In line with the public sector duty on equality under the Equality Act

Work areas There are 4 key areas that we work in: Policy development Community development Discrimination casework Public awareness and campaigns

Policy Key part of what we do is about influencing others in terms of good practice – research into issues that affect communities Mainly public and voluntary sector Involved in strategic partnerships to ensure our influence is felt widely Consulted about documents such as Equality Action Plans, duties under the Equality Act etc As part of this, we have a BME led consultation panel that agencies can access to find out the views of different communities

Community Development Specific to BME communities Give capacity building support to help BME groups develop and grow Undertaken research in this area that demonstrated that BME led community organisations were some way behind mainstream and needed more support to get onto a par Capacity Builders funding for dedicated workers, that has now ended What came out of that was the development of some strong new groups that are doing their own thing – SIA, Wah Lei etc

Community Development Also led to the development of the Unity Centre, West Cheshire’s Multicultural Hub CHAWREC manages this facility Offers a public face BME focal point for signposting, information and services Offers a space for BME groups Conversational English classes, functional skills in English Volunteering opportunities Hire rooms to many small businesses and helped them to develop eg capoiera

Casework Used to offer race specific casework Widened the service with the advent of the EHRC Now offer casework across all protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010 Withdrawal of grant funding means we have to sustain the service ourselves Free at the point of contact. Initial advice continues to be free If they want to move forward with case we take a percentage of successful awards Still struggling to keep the service going

Casework 316 enquiries between September August 2015

Casework Challenges More barriers than ever before for Claimants Fees introduced in Tribunal New ACAS Early Conciliation Short time limits/confusion re time limits Abolition of the statutory questionnaire procedure Tribunals have become more in line with Courts –more procedures Discrimination law becoming more complicated Fewer specialists in the discrimination field Free services like CAB overstretched in other areas of social welfare law

Public awareness Defined widely – includes campaigning work: – Social media, – Training on equality issues – Seminars – Open days – Responding to comments in newspapers

Membership We are a membership based organisation – for individuals and organisations FREE to join Find information on involved/membershipwww.chawrec.org.uk/get- involved/membership Contact