A statement on recent racist abuse

From Operations director Richard Barber.

At LSLCS we are becoming aware of what feels like an increase in racism towards our staff team. Over the years, it’s felt that some visitors and callers to our services deliberately avoid having support with workers from minority ethnic groups; however, this issue now feels even more problematic as we have had recent incidents where overt racist statements have been made.

We recognise that we work extensively with survivors of trauma, and that some people will become angry when they feel we are not offering effective support at a time of crisis. We always aim to embrace working with anger and other strong feelings and emotions. Anger towards staff members will be tolerated and worked with, but racism or other discriminatory behaviour towards staff will NOT be tolerated.

Racism is itself a major cause of trauma and something which affects many of our visitors and callers. We stand in solidarity with our visitors and callers who experience this, and also those within our staff team who experience racism or other discrimination either at work here or in their life generally.

We don’t always get these things right, but we are committed to working towards ensuring we support our staff team and visitors/callers with this issue.