What is LGBT+ History Month?

LGBT+ Month is an annual nationwide celebration throughout February, which was started in 1994 to celebrate the history of the gay rights and related civil rights movements. The history month gives a focus to raise awareness of the prejudice that can still exist, but also to raise up role models, celebrate achievements, and build a more just community. This year, the national theme is Politics in Art: ‘The Arc is Long’, and we at Kent also aim to ‘educate out prejudice’ and open doors for more dialogue and visibility for everyone in our diverse university community.

Kent Celebrations

You can find the Kent LGBT+ History month programme of events on the Kent Union website, featuring both online and in person activities open to all. Look out for exhibitions in the Library and the ‘LGBTQ+ In Lockdown’ exhibition in Keynes Atrium featuring student artists reflecting on what lockdown meant for them, both positive and negative. You might like to take part in a new book club, or try some hands-on activities such as tie dye t-shirt printing, pronoun badge making or Zine creating.

There are also educational webinars and seminars on ‘The Experiences of Transgender Students in Higher Education’, a series of highly exciting sessions as part of our ‘Celebrating Consent Day’, Student Support workshops on building resilience, film screenings, a Woody’s Quiz, and the chance to get tickets for the Queer Prom in March. LGBTQ+ flags will also be flying across both the Canterbury and the Medway campus. Learn about the meaning behind each of the unique colours and designs.

Support at Kent

Some of the discussions about LGBTQ+ experiences in lockdown may be challenging to engage with, or provoke feelings that you might benefit from working through in a therapeutic setting. Student Support and Wellbeing are running a therapeutic ‘Reflect, Recover and Empower’ workshop for LGBTQ+ students on 21 February, 19.00-20.30 with a particular focus on the personal impact of Covid-19 and coping with future change.

Student Support and Wellbeing offer mental health support, counselling and peer support groups to all students. You can also check out our LGBTQ+ self-help resource section online.

We have a number of ways to help and support staff, including through our EAP programme and Mental Health Allies. You can find all the information on support available to staff on our SharePoint site.

Networks and Societies

Kent operates networks and societies for its staff and student Rainbow communities. The Staff Network is open to all staff, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity or expression. It runs a confidential mailing list as well as organising different events throughout the year to promote equality and diversity and to raise awareness of LGBTQ+ people and issues. It also organises social events so that staff can network and seek advice and support from fellow colleagues. Please email the staff network if you are interested in joining.

The LGBTQ+ Student Network acts as a voice for LGBTQ+ students to both the University and the Union and helps to ensure informed decisions are made on a practical and strategic level as well as planning events and networking opportunities for new and returning students. Email the Student Network if you are interested in joining.

You can also join the student LGBTQ+ Society at Canterbury and the Medway LGBTQ Society, whose primary function is to facilitate a safe space for students of marginalised gender identities and sexualities to socialise and meet other like-minded individuals, helping to develop friendships and support networks. 

Allyship

LGBT+ History Month is for LGBTQ+ people and their allies as well. If you want to learn more about being an effective ally and using your power and influence to magnify the voices of underrepresented or marginalised groups, then our online Ally resources are an excellent place to start.

Follow #KentLGBTQHM22 on social media for the latest information on what’s on, and if you would like to contribute your experience and perspective to conversations, podcasts or articles on this theme during the month, please email StudentServicesWeb@kent.ac.uk.

Written by Natalia Crisanti, Student Engagement and Communications Officer, Student Services  and Becky Lamyman, Student Equality, Diversity and Inclusivity Officer, Student Services. 31.01.22

The University has started work on a scheduled Equal Pay Audit. To make this representative of the University population, your help is needed to check and, if necessary, update your equality information on Staff Connect by Friday 4 February.

The audit will update and build on the picture we gained from the 2015 audit. Data will be analysed by gender, age, ethnicity and disability, and also include some intersectional analysis which examines the impact of overlapping protected characteristics on pay.  

This data is anonymised and in order to further protect confidentiality, low response numbers are masked and not reported on.  

A Working Group comprising Human Resources, EDI staff, Union and Staff Representatives is currently working on a scoping document which will be published in due course.

To update your data, visit the ‘My Details’ and ‘My Equality Info (Edit)’ tabs from the left hand dashboard on Staff Connect.  

Are you a female student or staff member at Kent looking to develop and expand your knowledge and understanding of coaching Tennis?

Kent Sport is delighted to be offering our first tennis coach education course in our new University of Kent Indoor Tennis and Events Arena, at our Canterbury Campus.

Working in partnership with the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) and Virtus Leisure Management, the LTA’s approved LTA Coach Development Centre, we are hosting the two-day LTA Level 1 Assistant: Core Training Course.

Dates:

Sunday 27 February and Sunday 3 April 2022, 9.00 – 17.00

Cost:

£100 (usually £275)

Who can sign up:

Female students and staff at the University of Kent. The course has been subsidised by the LTA to encourage and engage more females into a coaching role within the sport of tennis. This enhanced two-day qualification is ideal for tennis parents, enthusiasts, or keen players looking for the knowledge and skills to support group coaching sessions, alongside a lead Coach.

Learning outcomes include:

• Communication, organisation, and differentiation skills for group coaching
• Basic tactical, technical, physical, and mental development frameworks
• Other key assistant skills; from safeguarding to LTA Youth delivery.

LTA Assistants will be trained to assist a lead Coach at any venue. The course is designed so that sessions run by a lead Coach can be run with higher group numbers, or a session with the same group numbers can be run with higher quality. The course learning outcomes are delivered in the context of beginner level, 10 and under coaching.

However, the course covers basic knowledge and skills that are applicable for any age and any level of player. On completion of the course, LTA Assistants will be trained as a Court Supervisor and will also receive their Safeguarding Training which can be accepted as part of LTA Coach Accreditation.

For further information on the course or to book your place contact: sue.bamford@virtuslm.co.uk.

For further information or general tennis enquires at the University of Kent please email: sportsdevelopment@kent.ac.uk.

Strengthening our culture of consent

The University of Kent aims to be a positive and inclusive community for all staff and students, and provide a place of work and study where respect and healthy relationships thrive.

We are committed to ensuring that our approach against sexual misconduct and assault is transparent and clear to both staff and students – that is it not tolerated and what the avenues are for reporting and obtaining support should it happen. To make a positive culture shift requires not only clarifications of sanctions and process, but a proactive approach to cultivate and strengthen a culture of consent in our university community – which is why we have launched a sex-positive campaign.

We have put together a student facing consent campaign page which is a useful resource for staff too.  In our campaign page we give information about what consent is and share some tips on how to ensure they have got consent, and how they can give consent clearly to their partner(s).

Celebrating Consent Day

As part of this ongoing campaign, we invite all staff and students to attend, learn and participate with us on Wednesday 9 February: Celebrating Consent Day!

Join us in Darwin Conference Suite from 13.00 for an afternoon of interactive and engaging sessions. Get your free tickets via Eventbrite where you can book tickets for as many or as few sessions as you would like!

13.00-14.00 The World of Online Dating: find your perfect partner and stay safe

We are starting our afternoon with a workshop on online dating. METRO and Protection Against Stalking (PAS) will be telling us about how to stay safe in the online dating world, and how to create a profile and enjoy getting know people.

15-15.15 Sex & Empowerment with Ruby Rare

For the second session we will be joined by Ruby Rare, a sex-educator, artist, and body-positive champion. She’s on a mission to engage people of all ages in positive conversations about sex and pleasure. You can expect a talk that moves away from the typical heteronormative sex-ed and addresses the ways in which we can tackle the stigmas around consent education and put pleasure first.

Ruby is a proud ambassador for Brook, the UK’s leading sexual health charity for young people, co-founder of life drawing collective Body Love Sketch Club, and has spoken at TedXLondon, Women of the World Festival, and on BBC Woman’s Hour. She is listed as one of 24 figures making a positive change to social media in Cosmopolitan’s 2021 Positivity Index.

15.30-17.00 Crafting Consent: a collaborative artwork

Our final session invites all participants to reflect on sex-positivity, empowerment, and consent by making a contribution to our community artwork. We will be providing materials and food! Stick around for a chat with our speakers and each other, have time to discuss your ideas and responses while we create a lasting memento of this snapshot in time of Kent’s journey to a more inclusive sex-positive culture.

We hope to see you there! Will you help us put a full stop to sexual assault and misconduct? Consent. Get it. Full Stop.

If you have any questions or want to collaborate on the Consent campaign at Kent, please email us at WellbeingEvents@kent.ac.uk

From Claire Chapman, Talent and Organisational Development Consultant

Time to Talk Day is the nation’s biggest mental health conversation and it’s nearly here! Taking place on Thursday 3 February, it’s the day that we can all come together to talk, listen and change lives.

Why talking is important

One in four of us will experience a mental health problem in any given year.

We want everyone to feel comfortable talking about mental health – whenever they like. Talking about mental health reduces stigma, helping to create supportive communities where we can talk openly about mental health and feel empowered to seek help when we need it.

That’s why opening up the conversation about mental health problems is so important – by talking about it we can support ourselves and others. Talking and listening about mental health has the power to change lives. Each conversation we have contributes to reducing mental health stigma, helping to create supportive communities where we can talk openly about mental health and feel empowered to seek help when we need it

Walk and talk

Side by side conversations can make talking about mental health feel less awkward. Check out these tips for talking to help break the ice. Why not combine getting out in the fresh air with a chat, come and join the Walk and Talk on Thursday 3 February at 13.00. Meeting out the front of the Registry (Darwin Side), we will have a 30-minute walk around the campus, maybe taking in one of the routes of our campus walks. However you do it, have a conversation about mental health.

Support for you

Remember the University has a number of resources available to you, from the Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) to Mental Health Allies and our Training and Referral Scheme – full details can be found on our Mental Health and Wellbeing webpages.

There are also a number of resources available to help you on Time to Talk day – from interactive bingo, screen savers and meeting backgrounds to true and false information and a conversation starter game. You can download these and other resources from the Time to Talk website.

Claire Chapman | Talent and Organisational Development Consultant

From Mark Reed, Assistant Director of Finance (Procurement)

Following changes to the Government’s international travel guidance, you may now book work travel to regions no longer on the Red List.

Please remember, however, that there are still some specific regions where the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) advises only essential or no travel.

Staff should not travel into regions where the FCDO advises against all travel, and should only travel to regions where the FCDO advises against all but essential travel when it is business critical and genuinely essential.

For any travel into a region where FCDO advises against all but essential travel, you will require a Travel Exceptions Authorisation Form signed by the Director of Division. You will also need a travel risk assessment, reviewed by our Safety, Health and Environment Unit.

Limited international travel

Taking account of both Covid-19 and costs involved, international staff travel should only occur where unavoidable and absolutely necessary. Conference attendance should be online where at all possible for the time being. Adding significant extra time to a trip for personal travel is in breach of our University Travel Policy You should not assume you will be able to travel as often as you may have done before the Covid-19 pandemic.

All travel should follow the Employee Personal Expenditure Policy – always check on our Finance webpages to make sure that you are using the most recent version of the policy.

Student travel overseas

Student travel overseas remains suspended until further notice and should not be booked this financial year unless it is essential to the subject studied and the promised student experience. Any student travel regarded as essential will require written permission, with a Travel Exceptions Authorisation Form, signed by the Director of Division.

Undergraduate students should not travel into any region where the FCDO advises against all travel or essential travel only. Postgraduate students should not travel into regions where the FCDO advises against all travel. Travel into any region where the FCDO advises essential travel only is subject to similar procedures as staff travel.

Find out more

Further information is available on our Finance webpages. If you have any queries, please contact any of us in the Procurement Team.

Mark Reed | Assistant Director of Finance (Procurement)