Hello, everybody. And welcome back to vet chat. Today I am delighted to be joined by Isa Robson and we are gonna be chatting about courageous conversations and how we can connect communities.
And before we get started, I'll just tell you a little bit about our guests. Today, Isa is a race equalities advocate, speaker, a co-founder and trustee of the British Veterinary, Ethnicity and Diversity Society. Now in its eighth year, she is a farm veterinary surgeon with over 15 years of clinical experience and a senior lecturer in farm veterinary clinical practise at Surrey Vet School.
Passionate about addressing racism in the profession is the advocates for open conversations and has played a key role in fostering support networks among affinity groups within the UK veterinary community. She is committed to creating an inclusive environment where individuals from all backgrounds feel empowered to thrive. As the director of Affinity Futures consultancy, she provides allyship training and quality consultancy to veterinary organisations.
ISA is also the founder of the Courageous Conversations Conferences in the U K's first dedicated Veterinary Diversity Conference held in 2020 2021. The third online Courageous Conversations Conference has been held very soon on the 19th and 20th of April. So welcome is said that was quite a long introduction.
But thank you for joining me today. Thank you. Thank you for having me.
It's fantastic. Everything that you, get up to you seem incredibly busy. But at the moment, key focus is all around the upcoming event that you have.
Yeah, fantastic. So I'm sure we'll come back to that as the conversation, develops. But to start with, tell us a little bit about what inspired you to, delve into courageous conversations within the veterinary field.
I guess I guess it wasn't really inspiration, but more that, I noted that not not just the veterinary profession, but in a society we weren't having these conversations. And it was almost like like, 2016. There was a lot of conversations that were being avoided and really that we had a situation whenever, people were trying to talk about some of the challenges that face that they were facing.
So when people were talking about, discrimination within the profession, there was a lot of emotion. I guess there was a lot of defensiveness. And that general, kind of like shutting people down who were trying to actually talk about their experiences.
And what I noticed was that there was this disconnect between, people having these conversations within their own communities and a and a fini group. So, you know, for us within, kind of, within the B vs community. And, you know, maybe people also having conversations in the LGBT community, and that the majority group, wasn't necessarily part of those conversations.
And they weren't able to. Yeah, they remained completely unaware of the challenges of, folks, from marginalised backgrounds or facing. And it wasn't really, you know, like there was no productive dialogue between these kind of these groups of people.
And that we needed to find a better way to, to to communicate between the the people in the majority that usually had the, resources and the decision making abilities to change things and the communities that needed the change. And Yeah, And when we started, you know, we started in a small way, having these conversations, with, you know, kind of, in our own communities and then extended that out to white allies who joined the B VTs community And what we you know, what was really nice was seeing that, actually, you know, there were allies within the profession that could understand what was going on, how people were experiencing the profession differently and that they would support and take action. And, that when you realise that, and you realise that you're actually not alone, even if you are, you know, kind of the minority in a very I guess, Yeah.
Homogeneous profession that actually, yeah, that that goes to mitigating a lot of the effects of discrimination in that in that profession, knowing that there are people that do support you. So there's huge benefits to having these open dialogues. Yeah, absolutely.
And what are some of the common, challenges that vets can face, You know, when engaging in the difficult conversations with clients and even colleagues? Yeah. So when when people are talking about, discrimination, there's a few things is that there's a lot of emotion.
So we're society teaches us that we shouldn't really be talking about these things. So there's a lot of potential like shame, embarrassment, guilt. People have the idea that, you know, like, if you say something racist, you are, you know, like you're automatically a bad person or if you, you know, it's almost like a good, bad, kind of like binary.
And you can only be one thing or the other. Not on a spectrum and not with the potential to learn. And and so that doesn't it, doesn't it?
It's really can be really difficult because everybody is quite emotionally heightened when you bring a conversa conversation about discrimination. I think egos, egos and especially, I think in the veterinary profession we like to be We like to get things right. And, one of the things in you know, when you go on an allyship journey is that, you know, perfection is going to hold you back.
So if you fear saying or doing the wrong thing, and that stops you acting, then we're not We're not probably not going to get anywhere very fast, but, you know, kind of like appreciating that, the perfection is is an unrealistic expectation in these conversations. I think discomfort is probably another one that people who you know who are who are made to feel that these conversations are taboo feel a lot of discomfort when people are talking about them for the first time, openly. And, and that is definitely something that is a phase that people move through.
But if they never persevere through that feeling of discomfort, then they never know that that is, that's a phase. The more you talk about these things, the more conversations that you have, the easier it gets. But you you won't know that unless you kind of push through that discomfort.
And it can be a lot easier just to avoid the topic. And then the classic thing that I think, is the first challenge that often people will come to us in the affinity groups and they will say, I would like to help. I want to be an ally, but I don't know what to do.
And that's probably like, That's like the one of the biggest questions that we're frequently asked is like, What can I do? So yeah, so I'll probably talk about that a little bit later, OK? Brilliant.
Yeah, and you mentioned emotions before. Do you have any tips from your experience or, you know, how come veterinary teams prepare themselves emotionally and mentally for these courageous conversations? Yeah.
So, the first is probably losing that focus on that good, bad binary. You know, people are really frightened of being, I think somebody called it cancelled or, you know, being labelled a racist or, you know, homophobic or something like that. And I think that when we realise that we're all capable of saying insensitive things, and that, if our intention is to do better, then when people call us out on that, that is just us receiving feedback.
And in fact, in a lot of our I mean, not everybody, but in a lot of our, like, education in the veterinary professions, we are receiving feedback about how we do things. And if our first response was to get very emotional and very defensive, then you can't You can't take the constructive part of that, feedback. So I think whilst it is, it is uncomfortable when we get called out on, ourselves.
I think if we remember that people are trying to give feedback to create to help create inclusive environments. And if that is the mindset that everybody has, then, then it's easier to receive that feedback. I talk about giving feedback with, compassion.
So you have compassion for the person who you think wants to do better, and you're just giving them feedback so that they can improve and then receiving feedback with grace. So you know, when you get the feedback remembering that actually, you know, you you you've made a mistake. You're not perfect.
And you didn't know something. And that actually, that's OK. It's what you do with that information next.
That's really important. And how you respond to getting that feedback can really go a long way to, deescalating a situation so brilliant. No, I think that's, I think that's great advice.
I think it's it's definitely a really good kind of strategy for how to navigate those, you know, tough discussions and conversations. Are you currently looking for a new role? Or maybe you're thinking about lo comming but don't know where to start.
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Are there any other kind of strategies or frameworks that you'd recommend for people listening? Yeah, So I mean, so, education is probably if if folks want to know what to do first, I think they probably need to kind of, do some, self education. Basically.
So if you want to help a particular, marginalised group, then you're gonna have to find out what challenges they face. What barriers There are, how they may negotiate the world completely differently to you. And that requires education.
And that's that's not a step that anybody can do for for you. It's There's no shortcuts. As as far as I'm aware.
Unless you have somebody from that group who has taken a particular interest in in helping you swiftly along your education journey, you kind of have to go out and find the podcasts and the, you know, yeah, the the blogs and the the articles and yeah, and the trainings and things like that. You have to do that yourself. And then probably the next thing is to see yourself with a growth mindset.
And, you know, whenever you feel discomfort on that path to really, you know, remind yourself that discomfort the fact that you don't know what to do the fact that you didn't know something is telling you that there's an opportunity for growth for yourself there. And, and to kind of push through that discomfort so that you do know. And you, have read enough so that you can be effective in your actions.
But yeah, it's all about you kind of do have to go away and do some reading. And I've got lots of resources to share with people if they're interested in in doing that. Yeah, I was gonna say, Like, if people are listening and literally don't know where to turn next to find out more.
If you've got some bits you could share, maybe we can put them. We can link them up to this podcast so people can find them. Absolutely.
So these resources will be, These are resources that people from the affinity groups thought were useful for allies to start with. So basically, we have a what's called a palet. So it looks like a a little, kind of page with columns and in the columns are links to some really good, books, some really good articles.
You know, terminology, that kind of thing, that people, find, daunting when they first start off. Yeah. So it's basically like I.
I don't think that you could get you. You'll be reading for the next year or so. So it's a really great place to start.
And we've kind of curated it so that it's kind of maximum impact. For the time that we know busy vet professionals have got fantastic. OK, brilliant.
No, we'll definitely link that up so people can find them. That's great. I was gonna ask as well, in your experience, have you, witnessed or do you know of any, examples of how courageous conversations have contributed to, you know, improved client compliance or any like, outcomes with patients?
Any sort of positive news about it that you have to share. So, I think I I'm not gonna give, like, a specific example, but I can just, you know, like we've we've been talking a lot about, human factors, haven't we? In the last few years.
And, and I would say that, you know, the first the the basis the first, start of this is that, you know, if we, if we create inclusive workplaces and and inclusive workplaces are places that aren't necessarily perfect but where these kind of courageous conversations can actually happen it's, you know, inclusive workplaces where you know people can bring their whole Selves to work is should be an environment that is good for all of us. Not just the folks from those marginalised groups, and, one of the most. I think probably one of the most transformative things that we can do for teams of, you know, that that are unsure of what exactly the protocols are for.
Dealing with discrimination is to kind of is to come together, have have facilitated conversations around these topics and empower the whole team. Not just, you know, so that it's not just like a boss or a you know, a clinical director that it's actually all all the vets, all of the receptionists. Everybody knows where they stand on, on these on these things.
And we can all tap into that collective wisdom and the bespoke solutions that fit that particular team. That is the ultimate team building. Because when you feel like people around, you protect the values that you hold dear and you're saying to them I will help protect the values that you hold dear to because actually, they're my values, too.
That that is amazingly bonded team. And it's a psychologically safe team. So if you can talk about, you know, discrimination and how we're gonna do better to create an inclusive environment, it's likely to be a safe environment for reporting clinical issues, reporting mistakes, having team debriefs about significant events.
These are all the same skill set. Discrimination is kind of just like I don't know. It's almost like the, you know, one of the worst case scenarios for soft skills.
But if we you know, if we use discrimination training as a tool to have those discussions, it has a lot of benefits. And Yeah, And then I'm sure that we can point to you know why? Psychologically safe teams have better patient outcomes, patient care outcomes.
But, I mean, they're just amazing environments to work in when you have a team that, yeah protects your values. Yeah, absolutely. You want that nice culture, don't you?
In that environment, anyway, because I guess on the other side of things, if you avoid having these conversations, there could be negative consequences as well. Yeah, I think, you know, if you're part of a team where, like, discrimination isn't challenged and where clients and colleagues are allowed to make comments and these these environments are more common than people think. So, you know, recent surveys showed that a third of respondents had either experienced or witnessed discrimination.
That's one of the, BBAS, surveys, I think in 2000, 2001. And you know, so the these, like, truly inclusive practises are actually unusual. And, you know, when you don't feel safe, then and you don't think that your colleagues are going to back you up about these topics, then it's likely that you know how I I don't know how you feel safe when you make a mistake or if you're trying to give feedback to improve something and you don't feel that people will listen to you.
You know, it said we're in a recruitment and retention crisis. And if if you want to, if you want to keep good people and talented people, probably preventing discrimination is a really great way. And, you know, relatively, I would suggest cost effective to, show loyalty and to receive loyalty from your employees.
So, yeah, if we avoid talking I, I won't stay in in a workplace that, facilitates discrimination or, you know, facilitates clients being discriminatory. That's not that's not a that's not a workplace, that I will stay in long term. And that's a shame, because I'm a really great vet.
And, yeah, if if you don't, if you don't, show that loyalty and that I guess organisational maturity, then you will not retain people. And what about if people are listening and they totally agreeing with everything that you're saying? But they might feel a little bit apprehensive or a bit anxious about having these conversations.
Do you have any advice for, for them. I think there's a lot of people who are really conflict averse, and I think there's a combination of that and the fact that we are like a client facing, you know where client facing and where you know the client is right and all of this kind of stuff. There's a lot of folks who are conflict averse and because we work in a service industry, they they think that, if they challenge, discriminatory behaviour or if they are trying to engage in a conversation that is, you know, kind of a little bit challenging, that it always needs to be.
It always needs to escalate the conflict. I like to. I like to tell people that actually, you're you're not necessarily starting an argument.
You're actually protecting your own values. And if you just state what your values are, so somebody says something discriminatory and you say actually, that comment makes me feel really uncomfortable. There is no need for any more conversation around that point.
You have stated very clearly that you do not agree with what has been said, because often silence isn't like it doesn't make it doesn't make your stance known and encourages them to say the same kinds of things or something worse in the future. So, life is gonna give you lots of opportunities to practise, like challenging somebody's inappropriate behaviour, and that does build confidence. And yeah.
And I think that you know what we we advocate a lot for, having like a go to phrase. So, you know, So if you hear something, I my first thing to recommend to people is just to say, Take a deep breath and just say no, you know, put your hand up and go. Nope.
And once you have, you'll have to calm your emotions down, take a another few deep breaths that now gives you an opportunity to think a little bit more clearly because you do not think clearly in the moment. So having a stock phrase to say, you know what, that makes me feel really uncomfortable or like that's not really appropriate language for the workplace. And again, in in our padlock, we have lots of, ways for people to make their challenge in a as confrontational or as least confrontational way, as they see fit.
But yeah, There's, there's other things. Like, accepting that. You know, you when you're talking about these topics that you might, you know, make a mistake.
And everyone's, like, really mortified about that, or, you know, they think it's just the worst thing to have, you know, misspoken or used an incorrect phrase. But it's actually you can take away a lot of that fear if you learn how to make good apologies. So, two parts, to a good apologies, probably the impact.
So saying something like, I am so sorry. I didn't know that. And then the promise to do better next time can go a long way to mitigate the initial mistake.
So, thank you. You know, thanking the person for giving you that feedback. Thanks for telling me.
I won't do that in the future. Or, you know, I've learned that I'm going to go away and reflect on it. You know, that's that's a great way to make amends.
If you've just made you know, a throwaway comment or phrase and you hadn't really thought about it and someone points out. Yeah, brilliant. And is that kind of your hope for the future that all these conversations will just become more normal, I guess, as the more of them that we're having and the more people learn and educate themselves.
Yeah, I'm hoping. So, I've managed to get ballet training into the curriculum at uni, and And what I see with those, vet students is that they have are they're really mature. And they're really able to talk about these conversations.
Perhaps that we haven't thought was, you know, maybe appropriate to be having that conversation whilst they're still in university. But we're not having those conversations necessarily outside. So where are they going to get that?
That first taste of having, you know, respectful conversation about challenging topics. So actually, what I saw was that the you know, the feedback from the students was we wish we'd had this sooner. We want to talk about it, longer.
We want different scenarios to to discuss there. So there's a real appetite, I think, for for having open conversations about really common types of discrimination that are occurring in everyday practise and you know we have. We have conversations about, adverse events, don't we?
You know, if something goes wrong, clinically or surgically, we, you know, having that team discussion and a debrief is, you know, becoming part of a normal, healthy, workplace that understands the kind of like the mental health impacts. Well, this is the same. This is a discrimination has a mental health impact.
And, you know, sometimes we don't handle things right in the moment because we haven't practised which we can do. Or because we haven't made it clear to everybody in the practise how we're gonna handle certain things. What happens next?
Yeah, we can. We can do all of that. I So I'm really hopeful that, you know that that kind of, simulation training like the roleplay training that we, we kind of like that.
Our signature training, affinity, futures. It just becomes really normal. And, you know, allowing people to explore how they feel, to realise that other people notice the same things that they did about those situations, stuck and challenged by you know, the context of the scenario in the same way.
And they can practise what they would do or what they would say. And, you know, and I think that that is a really a healthy way to process. What is otherwise like?
Quite, quite, yeah. Like upsetting? Yeah.
Upsetting, issue or scenario that can happen in our veterinary life. Mhm. Yeah, Absolutely.
And just finally, before we wrap up, tell me a little bit about the courageous conversations event. OK, so the courageous conversations conference, was something that happened during covid the initially, and it was it was the thought that most mainstream, veterinary conferences didn't actually seem to have a place for discussions about ED I so quality, diversity and inclusion. And I was sure that, like, there was an appetite for these discussions.
So, yeah, so we put the first one on during covid. And we ended up, with 250 delegates registering in three days, So, we started, we started, you know, we had the first one, and it was a great success. We ran out of time in our programme and we could see that there were other topics that people were desperate to to have conversations about.
And so we included them in the second one and taking a little break. And now affinity futures is, partnered so that we, have the support to host the third courageous conversations conference. So it's a, it's a very collaborative conference, so we may have speakers there, but we are.
We're very Yeah, we we're sure that our participants have as much to offer as our speakers. So we like to try and make some of these sessions as collaborative as possible. So the theme this year is connecting communities.
So there's gonna be opportunities for, participants to meet other people in who might share the same protected characteristics as them, who are part of the same affinity groups. We've got workshops. And some of the ones that I want to point out are that we've got workshops, for educators and mentors.
So anybody who's kind of, I guess, mentoring the next generation of vets where we're trying to imagine what veterinary education could look like with, you know, so one of the workshops is titled Building the Anti Racist Vet School or nursing school. Another is building the LGBT plus friendly vet school or nursing school. And, and also, disability and, neurodiversity friendly, vet nurse school.
So we really want, our participants to come and contribute their ideas. We're having a variety of talks by, speakers about allyship about diversity and inclusion. And we'll also be, holding some events where people can, network a little bit more with each other.
Yeah. So it's a very relaxed, conference. It's running on the 19th and 20th of April.
The 19th is a Friday. So the focus is more on, those who who may be working in education, that kind of thing. And then there's a student focus day on the Saturday because we appreciated that students will be in class on the Friday.
So we're hoping that, we get more students on the Saturday to, and we'll be having folks leading those sessions. So that they can yeah, meet, role models and things like that. Brilliant.
Now it sounds amazing. Sounds like two jam packed days. Yeah, it will be.
We've, the the timetable is is still slightly flexible. But yeah, we've got we've got lots of, yeah, we've got lots of planned content already. And we'll have some slots for, some recorded content as well.
So yeah, we're really looking forward to it. Brilliant. And where should people go if they want to get involved?
They can, they can email, info at affinity futures.com. We also have a website, which is affinity futures.com, and, and the the link to the conference should be, accessible from, the home page.
But the, the the conference is is free. So, for students, absolutely free for those who can forward to. We've got a pay pay as you can donation.
So our suggested donation is only five pounds. It's online, so nobody has to travel anywhere. We're totally expecting people to be looking after kids cooking dinner.
You know, in their pyjamas, doing other things, whilst whilst the conference is going on very relaxed, and yeah, and we just would really like, the input from as many participants as possible. So brilliant. All right.
All sounds great. Well, its a Thank you so much. I really enjoyed, listening to you and Yeah, I will definitely be checking out all the links that we're gonna put alongside this podcast and educating myself a lot more as well.
Ok, thank you. Thank you.
