Celebrating Black culture

With rioting in different parts of the country over the summer, and as I listened to my partner – herself a physiotherapist and CEO of a therapies charity – talking about taking the decision to send Black and Asian staff home because of their very real concerns such as worrying about getting attacked on their way home, it struck me so clearly just how important it is to protect and value the diverse society we have here in the UK. 

With opportunities such as Black History Month we have a ready-made occasion to do just that. Which is why I’m talking to three amazing physiotherapists who have taken time out of their busy working days to discuss the importance of Black History Month – what it means to them and how the profession can get involved to collectively bring about meaningful change within the profession. 

What does Black History month mean to you?

A time to reflect and learn

Deborah talks with pride about having the chance as a Black British person of Jamaican descent to share with others, whether family or colleagues, the impact that those from the Caribbean who came to the UK on Empire Windrush – people like her grandparents – have had on shaping and building Britain.

Kehinde (Kenny) shares similar sentiments. For her this month is an opportunity to celebrate the contribution that Black people have made and continue to make, both in the UK and within the NHS specifically. 

Ibidayo (Dayo) agrees and adds that it provides an opportunity for him to reflect on home and his culture. He talks of inspirational leaders and his own father being an inspiration that made him want to be like him – someone who serves others.

Kenny is similarly reflective. She explains the impact her older brother had on her. He found a way to study medicine despite the family growing up with lots of financial challenges, showing Kenny that it was possible for her to go to university too. Deborah adds that every Black History Month she and her family learn more about Black leaders, particularly those that get overlooked. All three talk about how they bring that inspiration into their roles at work, as physiotherapists with their patients and as they champion equity, diversity and inclusion in the workforce. 

We’re not there yet 

But all three physios are also realistic that there’s still work to be done. When Deborah shares her fears for herself, her colleagues at work and for her 16-year-old son travelling on his own into London during the recent unrest, I am palpably reminded of the very real societal and workforce consequences.

This month is an opportunity to celebrate the contribution that Black people have made and continue to make, both in the UK and within the NHS specifically...[and] to reflect on home and culture...[and to learn and talk about] inspirational leaders.

I am reminded of why she; Kenny and Dayo are champions for equity and why the CSP has an enduring commitment to being anti-racist.

What’s needed to get there?

The trio all share three very similar ideas…

• Actively engage. Be an ally, understand your part in being anti-racist. The CSP’s campaign calling out microaggressions or the racial inclusivity resource that Deborah worked on are great places to start. 
• Be curious and culturally intelligent. Learn about other cultures and experiences. Deborah explains that she never gets tired of people asking questions - in fact she welcomes that curiosity. Read books, watch videos, join the lunches that Dayo and his colleagues put on for their team. Although with around 20 people at the last lunch, expect a queue to get your hands on his jollof rice and fried plantain!
• Champion difference. They all share their concerns that internationally recruited physios still face an uphill struggle to be appreciated within the workforce. Kenny notes that it can be too easy to equate difference with incompetence. She hopes to see greater value placed on colleagues who are simultaneously assimilating into another culture, familiarising themselves with different structures, systems, processes at work as well as at home, all while getting to grips with a new job. She’d like to see colleagues being recognised for their resilience, tenacity and adaptability. Dayo agrees. It’s what prompted him to set up a network for international physios to share practical help, including how to secure a mortgage or apply for a driving licence. 

Deborah challenges those who are UK-trained to nurture and support these colleagues because they come with so much richness and can contribute greatly in terms of their diversity and what they know. 

Why it matters 

Kenny shares an early workplace misunderstanding caused by not knowing that ‘tea’ can mean a drink or a meal in the UK. Dayo shared that he signalled ‘the number two’ to a patient with his hands and was unaware that in Britain he was making an impolite gesture. Thankfully, no one was offended, but as Dayo notes, it might have become a performance management issue with a less culturally intelligent supervisor. 

Deborah shares her disappointment when reading the case studies that came through the HEE project, seeing how many students left their training because of their placement experiences. The resource was a tangible way to make a difference. She’s hopeful that it will help deliver the diversity the workforce needs. Kenny agrees. With a multicultural and diverse workforce, the more we understand each other – the better we work together. 

It can still be too easy to equate difference with incompetence... greater value [should be] placed on colleagues who are simultaneously assimilating into another culture, familiarising themselves with different structures, systems, processes. All while getting to grips with a new job.

The better we work together, the better we achieve our common goal, ultimately benefitting the patient. Dayo continues, by noting that the more diverse a team is, the better able they are to relate to patients, speaking a range of languages and being able to draw on similar cultural experiences to understand patients’ unspoken concerns. 

Call to action

So, with all that said, it’s time to take inspiration from Deborah, Kenny and Dayo. Dive into Black History Month and actively champion equity, diversity and belonging for the benefit of patients and everyone in the AHP workforce. 

Deborah’s national record of achievement, written when she was 16, stated quite clearly ‘I want to be a

physiotherapist’, and she’s achieved that dream. 

Working first as a physiotherapy assistant at St George’s Hospital London before training to be a physiotherapist at the University of East London, 28 years into her NHS career she’s as passionate about physiotherapy and allied health professions (AHPs) as she was the day she started. 

Deborah is head of therapies within a cancer division at Mount Vernon Cancer Centre. She, like Dayo and Kenny, is a member of the CSP’s Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) network. She believes representation matters and it’s important to be visible and active as a Black leader in a workforce where that representation shrinks the higher up the career ladder you go. 

Deborah is an NHS Inclusion ambassador and a CSP equality rep for East of England, where she champions equity, diversity and inclusion in the workplace. 

She recently worked with a consortium of universities and Health Education England to develop a racial inclusivity resource for physiotherapy practice education – accessible through the NHS Learning Hub. 

Racial inclusion resource and NHS Learning Hub

Kenny is a physiotherapist with more than 29 years of clinical experience. She currently works as an advanced

physiotherapy practitioner in orthopaedics and musculoskeletal at Kent Community Health Trust. 

She relocated to the UK in 2002. Her first job in the UK was at the MSK outpatient at Victoria Hospital Deal, Kent, as a band 6 physiotherapist.

Kenny was born in Nigeria, where she completed her physiotherapy degree at the University of Ibadan. 

Committed to her own professional development, she went on to complete her masters in exercise physiology at the University of Lagos. Continuing her career in the UK, Kenny then went on to achieve a postgraduate certificate in neuro-musculoskeletal and in 2009 she gained an MSc in physiotherapy, both at the University of Brighton, before becoming an independent prescriber in 2019.

Actively involved in the CSP south east region, Kenny is part of the core team and is an inclusion ambassador in her trust. Until March she was also the AHP international recruitment lead for the NHSE south east region, passionately supporting internationally recruited colleagues and the services that are hiring them.

She remains dedicated to mentoring and motivating others.

Born in the south western region of Nigeria and from the Yoruba tribe, Dayo came to the UK in March 2022.

He qualified as a physiotherapist from the Obafemi Awolowo University and interned at the University Teaching Hospitals (UCH), Nigeria. Dayo worked as a physiotherapist for 10 years in Nigeria before to the UK, joining the team at Stepping Hill Hospital. 

The oldest of four, his parents both teachers, and brought up in a culture that values family and looking after the needs of others, he was the assistant general secretary of the National Union of Allied Health Professionals before he relocated to the UK. 

It’s no surprise that this desire to serve continued after moving to a new home. Dayo is a CSP steward and in his own time set up a network for overseas physiotherapists offering practical and pastoral support as people settle into a new country.

He can also often be found preparing lunch events for the whole team at his trust, introducing and sharing Nigerian food with them.

Who has inspired them?

Daisy Bates, president of the Arkansas chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People

A civil rights activist who fought for equality, she was well known for her leadership and mentorship of the Little Rock Nine - the nine students she chose to begin the integration into Arkansas’s Central High School in 1957. 

Daisy fought for equality. She showed resilience in the face of the death threats she faced for upending segregation.

She advocated for Black people in her community. 

By 1941 she had already set up the Arkansas State Press, a weekly state wide newspaper that gave a voice to the Black community, reporting on the inequalities and injustices the community faced. She gave them a voice and a platform. 

Want to know more? You Tube Daisy Bates; Daisy Bates 1914-1999 By Arlisha Norwood, NWHM Fellow | 2017