To become more inclusive, there are many great strategies and tools out in the world that organisations can adopt, including 'inclusive frameworks’ ‘inclusive principles’ and ‘inclusion technologies’ – the possibilities are endless, and so are the costs.
The key thing to remember is that any approach to inclusion needs to be based on and enhance the Seven C's of Inclusion (commitment, contribution, challenge, collaboration, continuity, capture, compassion.
When thinking about your approach to inclusion, think about:
- building on what you are already doing to include people in your organisation
- inclusion in different practices or processes across the whole organisation (e.g., priority setting or decision making)
- inclusion from concept to review (the start of an idea to the end implementation and final evaluation)
- inclusion from the perspective of those being included and those who are marginalised or excluded
An organisation can bring together their chosen approaches to inclusion in an inclusion framework (like a web of inclusion) but it needs to be flexible and change over time and use new and innovative methods for inclusion as they emerge e.g., digital technologies like apps and big data on user experience.
Inclusion relates to people’s ability to be involved (how they connect in and why) – and finding ways so that different groups can be involved in ways they want to. Using a variety of inclusive structures can enable more diverse types of involvement, direct and indirect, one-off or ongoing, for example.
Cross-cutting structures are also needed to allow various groups at different places in the inclusion approach to work together, share and learn from each other, e.g., email updates, newsletters or observers from one group joining another.
If you are serious about developing inclusion, don't begin from a place of exclusion. Be as inclusive as possible in the design of your inclusion framework.