Careers for All is a UK programme run by Leeds Museums and Galleries, designed to make aspiring career opportunities more accessible for young people with SEND (special educational needs and disabilities). The activity is government-funded through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund and supported by several other key stakeholders including Leeds City Council and Luminate Education Group, which is a collection of colleges across Yorkshire.
Although the Careers for All focus groups and youth panels are targeted at SEND young people, the impact of this EDI work is far more widespread. Now in its fifth year, the ripple effect of the programme has been disseminated across Leeds Museums through a comprehensive recruitment practices resource and learning has been shared with organisations across the UK.
We interviewed Carl Newbould, Learning and Access Officer for Leeds Museums and Galleries, who works directly on the Careers for All programme. We learn more about how the programme is designed to be a stepping stone to success for participants and how EDI activity like this will help to avoid a blinkered view of the world. We also find out more about why partnerships and lived experience are key pieces of advice Carl would share with other organisations looking to deliver something similar.
Can you tell us more about your role in Leeds Museums’ EDI activity and your motivations?
The role I have within Leeds Museums as a Learning and Access officer is specific to a project called Careers for All. The project is designed to help young people with special educational needs and disabilities bridge the gap from learning in academia to earning in the workplace. It's designed for creating career-aspiring activities for those audiences. So, in particular, we're looking at our policies around diverse employment and inclusion within our workforce and wanting to address that partly through our Careers for All programme.
It stemmed, for me personally, through running the work experiences in the Careers for All programme and gaining the trust of the students who came in for that. Those students are the initial driving force and that created a snowball effect because I would be working with them and see how valuable those individuals are as potential staff members. Then, through the Careers for All programme, I would support them in applying for new job roles.
Being able to see from working with that individual how the interview process was preventing them from doing a role they were more than capable of doing felt like an injustice that had to be addressed. Although I find it harder to do that for them applying for other organisations, I knew there was something that we could do within our own.
How is your work embedded into the wider strategy of Leeds Museums?
We are working on something called our workforce development plan and within that, we have sections that include things like access to interviews and recruitment and then employment and Careers for All. The programme itself has directly fed into this workforce development plan, which will be for all of the recruiting managers across our museum's service.
Careers for All is also giving us a platform to have more work experience for young people who have special educational needs and/or are neurodivergent. This brings a more diverse opinion into our workforce but also it means our staff have exposure to a group they may not have had before. This is increasing confidence within our organisation and going forward we will have a more diverse workforce as a result.
The programme has also led to things like more training opportunities and more curiosity from the staff to learn about neurodivergence and special educational needs. There is more of an appetite to learn and to be more inclusive within everybody's work practice.
What problem does the Careers for All programme seek to address?
Barriers to employment, from how adverts are set out to how to write an application and then the interview process in itself. Whilst it might be orientated to young people who are SEND, the ripple effect is changing recruitment practices for all young people across Leeds.
There can be all sorts of aspects around interviews and applications that are barriers to anyone and everyone, be it confidence in applying or anxiety around being put on the spot. So, one piece of learning I come across quite a lot is that making your recruitment process more inclusive for people with learning disabilities or neurodivergent individuals also benefits neurotypical audiences as well. Things like sharing interview questions in advance or allowing candidates to bring notes to interviews and offering interviews online, have a really beneficial impact on all applicants, helping everyone to bring out their best.
How did you reach your target groups to ensure they were able to engage with the programme?
The partnership with the colleges was really important because that gave us the ability to tap into resources and knowledge from their tutors and employment coaches. That was really beneficial as well as the ability to connect with and chat to their students. The groundwork that Leeds Museums had been doing through Careers for All with the activities, work experience and youth programmes we run was essentially a great way to build connections with individuals who then joined our youth panel.
I've found within this role that there is bountiful support out there, from schools and colleges in particular. If they know you want to improve your inclusive practice and that you want to make your sites more accessible, there is ample support that teachers, tutors and employment and skills coaches will give you.
How do you know your EDI work is improving diversity and inclusion?
The first telling sign was the Disability Confident Employer scheme. We have the eligibility box in our applications. Leeds City Council as a whole is at the highest level that you can be, which is 'Leader'. This means we're supposed to advocate for the scheme and share how we are trying to improve our inclusivity for recruitment.
One of the key indicators is how many people tick that box and one of the key aspects of learning about that scheme is understanding that there will be people who are eligible for the scheme who don't tick the box. However, the percentage, particularly within our education project placements, of people who have ticked that box upon application is much larger than the average you would expect. For the most recent project placement that was involved with our learning programmes, we had around 50% tick the box.
It's also about the outward perception of the museum as well and we see that as really positive. If people are confident to tick that box, there's hopefully more trust in us being an inclusive organisation. As a nice anecdote from one of our recent successful project placements, one of the participants said they only applied for the post because they knew it was Leeds Museums and Galleries. If it was anywhere else, they said they wouldn't have gone for it, so these bits of feedback are wonderful nuggets for us to hold on to.
I think overall staff confidence and staff awareness about inclusive recruitment has shown success too. Also, colleagues and staff in general because although we did have colleagues and staff within the organisation before Careers for All who are neurodivergent, this has increased since having more understanding.
What do you think makes this initiative successful?
I think the way it has grown and expanded and that it was designed as a research project. Initially, it was a curiosity of wanting to improve our practice and it grew beyond what I expected. I had hoped it would feed into entry-level posts and that our entry-level posts would be more accessible to a wider audience. But actually, the impact it had at that level meant it grew into all of our recruiting practices.
I think in terms of working in a museum and gallery service, it's a huge advantage that the colleagues I have working around us are generally very community-driven. Particularly because we're a local authority museum and community is a huge part of the work produced by Leeds Museums. I know from consulting with and talking to other organisations wanting to replicate what we have done that there can be resistance to particular changes. If there isn't buy-in from a senior management level, the desire to change the practice can end up being held back or stopped.
Then, going out and beyond that into the council more widely was a wonderful success for us, seeing our work adopted by other council departments like HR and Green spaces—museums and galleries was a safe place to try things out, giving others confidence to follow in our footsteps and develop inclusive recruitment practices of their own. Having that community connection museums often have that other arms of the council don't always have as strongly is fantastic. That's perhaps a reason why the project proved to be so successful and why we learned so much from it.
Do you have any particular short, medium or long-term EDI goals?
Definitely to have a more diverse workforce. So, one of the things that I track through the Careers for All programme is those people who engage with it, including individuals who have joined us through our work experience programme or perhaps some of our cohort work experience as well. If we're able to and allowed to, we will also track where they go next in their career journeys. Some might go off and do something completely different to museums and galleries, but that's still very much seen as a success in my eyes. We're aiming for Careers for All and our inclusive recruitment practice to be a stepping stone for people.
We've also had several apply for positions and end up in roles within the museum and some are currently in volunteer opportunities as well. So, we're also diversifying our volunteer pool through Careers for All—and that's really the aim. Having wider representation within our teams in museums can then have a knock-on effect on people who actually visit our museums.
Have you experienced any challenges, barriers or limitations to your EDI work?
So, one of the things that has and can be a bit of a barrier in a large organisation—council wide rather than just museums—is how you apply for a job post digitally. If there is a particular way a computer system processes applications and recruiting managers aren't willing to personally override or navigate that system, you end up having to channel everybody down that same stream, which may not be the ideal way to apply for a lot of individuals. If your organisation systems are blocking people at that first point of contact, it can mean that the successful outcome you're hoping for perhaps won't be as wide as you'd wished.
Also, with a large enough organisation, if there are many recruiting managers, a challenge can be ensuring that if a recruiting manager post changes, the new one has the knowledge and the training to follow the inclusive guidance and the way the organisation is supposed to be going.
What do you believe the risks are of not addressing EDI within your organisation?
Having a very almost blinkered view of the world. There is a saying that is often thrown around in museums and galleries that museums and galleries should be for everybody. However, if we're only recruiting a certain demographic of people, how are we going to be able to reflect a voice that isn't there in your staff team, in your collections, and in your displays? Without that, it's really difficult to appeal to the wide audience that museums are supposed to appeal to.
What advice or key learning would you share with other organisations considering developing or delivering similar initiatives?
I'd definitely say that partnerships are key and knowing who the right partners are to work with. Also, include lived experience as much as you can from the start of your process to be an advocate for what you do and ensure that the work you're putting into it is heard by those up the ladder in your organisation. This will really make sure your work has significant traction and benefit.
To learn more about Leeds Museums & Galleries’ EDI work or to get involved with the Careers for All programme, click here.
