Cafcass Cymru Diversity and Inclusion Framework 2026 to 2031

Cafcass Cymru’s purpose is to safeguard and promote the best interests of children and young people. Achieving this requires an organisation where diversity is valued, inclusion is embedded in everyday practice, and equity is a guiding principle.

Between 2020 and 2025, we made significant progress in strengthening staff knowledge, systems, and tools to routinely consider diversity and support inclusive practice. Our next phase will consolidate that progress, and continue to build upon what we have achieved, to embed a model of equity-informed practice that aligns with the Cafcass Cymru Practice Framework, the Welsh Language Standards, our responsibilities under the Equality Act 2010, and the professional standards for social workers as set out by Social Care Wales.

• Children and families experience equitable, accessible, culturally sensitive practice.
• Practitioners feel confident, supported and skilled in recognising identity, culture, language and accessibility needs.
• Leaders model inclusive practice and decision making, and a strong anti discriminatory stance.
• Our systems, data and partnerships allow us to identify disparities and take effective action. 
• Diversity and inclusion are reflected in our workforce, our service design, and our culture.

Progress against this framework will be monitored through annual diversity data analysis, workforce reporting, learning and development activities, practice assurance processes, and feedback from children, families and stakeholders. The framework will be reviewed periodically to ensure it remains responsive to emerging evidence, legislation and the needs of the people we serve.

By embedding diversity, inclusion and equity throughout our work, Cafcass Cymru will continue to strengthen its ability to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and young people across Wales.

The Diversity and Inclusion Framework complements our values as outlined in our practice framework and is an enabler of high-quality practice.

Child-centred

• We use tools that support practitioners to enable a child to describe their identity in their own words.
• We seek to understand children’s individual needs and respond to their communication preferences.
• We take account of children’s culture, identity and holistic needs when making recommendations for them.

Respect

• We are committed to ensuring that our own practice is actively anti-discriminatory and that we never make assumptions about any individual, but instead embed respectful curiosity, cultural humility, and awareness of bias in our practice.
• We are committed to treating everyone fairly, regardless of their background, identity, beliefs, or personal circumstances, and apply a trauma-informed approach to those that have experienced prejudice.
• We value the dignity and rights of everyone we work with and make adaptations when needed to ensure everyone using our service has an equitable chance to participate fully.
• We recognise that structural inequalities and discrimination shape people’s lives and are committed to playing our part in ensuring that diversity does not unfairly impact anyone’s experiences in family court proceedings.

Professional

• We are committed to our continual learning and improvement and ensure that diversity is integral to our learning and development programme.
• We ensure that supervision addresses diversity considerations, bias, intersectionality and how well our reports reflect the unique identities of those we work with.
• We analyse the diversity data we capture and use it to inform us about the diverse identities and needs of those we are working with. We use practice review mechanisms to ensure that the information we gather about diversity informs our work with individuals and the organisation as a whole.

We achieved a considerable amount under our 2020 to 2025 Diversity and Inclusion Framework, highlights of which included:

1. We successfully developed and embedded a system to capture meaningful diversity information from all adults and children that we work with.
2. We established regular analysis of diversity information and have a clearer picture of who we work with, which informs practice development and training.
3. We established diversity champions groups, which offer a safe space to talk about issues we encounter, learning needs we may have and develop resources that support improved practice across the organisation.
4. Each area has a Practice Manager diversity lead to ensure that diversity remains a focus in all teams.
5. Diversity is a key consideration in report prompts and Practice Reviews.
6. We have provided training for all staff from the National Neurodivergence Service, to ensure an organisation wide understanding of autism.
7. We have provided training on a wide range of topics including neurodivergence, the impact of mental health on parenting, ethnicity and culture, working with Polish families and those of African origin, and the impact of Immigration.
8. We have established quarterly diversity and inclusion newsletters to promote awareness, share learning, and celebrate diversity, which always include a ‘Spotlight on Practice’ article about how we addressed diversity in a particular (anonymised) case.
9. We have developed additional guidance documents:
   • to support business support staff respond to a range of communication challenges
   • for practitioners working with children who have disabilities
   • around key considerations when using interpreters
   • ‘top tips’ resource for practitioners and parents around supporting children to cope with transitions, especially if they are neurodivergent or anxious.
10. We have taken a responsive approach to using occupational health and EAP to support our staff’s own mental health, and offered training to managers around menopause support and supporting neurodivergent staff.

Going forwards, our intention is to retain this focus on diversity and build on our progress, with particular attention paid to: 

• Following an equity-informed practice model 
• Inclusive culture and communication 
• Inclusive people and leadership, and promoting workforce diversity 
• Maintaining a diversity focus in our learning and development programme 
• Using data to hold ourselves to account and drive practice improvement

Inclusive, equity-informed practice

• Children and adults experience a culturally sensitive and respectful service from us, both in how we make our enquiries, and how we respond to the information shared with us.
• Identity, culture, language and accessibility considerations are clear across all practice tools, templates and audits.
• Staff have an improved understanding of intersectionality and how the different elements of people’s lived experiences impact their daily lives, their access to resources and how they interact with professionals and organisations in the family justice system.
• Diversity information and reflections upon how someone’s identity and lived experiences impact their circumstances, inform how we undertake direct work with children and communicate with adults using our service.
• We develop a systematic approach to reviewing the appropriate inclusion and analysis of diversity information in reports and recommendations, considering children’s holistic needs.
• We continue to share case law, practice guidance and research with practitioners on an ongoing basis to inform our understanding of the relevance of diversity factors for individuals in the family justice system.
• Diversity lead Practice Managers play an important role in promoting all practitioners not only capturing complete diversity information but also considering the ‘so what’ component of that diversity in their work and ensuring reports reflect unique identities and considerations.
• We retain a commitment to providing safe discussion forums in which staff can address issues arising in respect of diversity and consider conscious and unconscious bias and how we guard against this impacting our work.

Inclusive culture and communication 

• Ensuring an organisational culture that feels safe, respectful, curious and reflective, for our colleagues and those using our service.
• All written communication being accessible and bilingual as standard. Ensuring that our key documents are readily available in the languages most commonly used by service users (beyond English and Welsh); reviewing this each year when our diversity data analysis is completed.
• Ensuring that all digital and written communication follows plain language standards.
• Development of additional information for neurodivergent individuals using our service, to help reduce anxiety and uncertainty about the process.
• Development of guidance for practitioners to prompt appropriate enquiries as to what adjustments would best support individuals when engaging with us, and what reasonable adjustments we can consider.
• Ensuring all Cafcass Cymru staff are provided with relevant training and guidance to provide inclusive communication.

Inclusive people and leadership

• Leadership that reflects the diversity of Wales, considering how diversity can be increased in the Operational Leadership Group, and / or leadership discussions informed by a diverse range of staff.
• Continuing to strengthen liaison with Welsh Government, universities, and minority ethnic communities to encourage applications to Cafcass Cymru jobs from those with diverse lived experiences.
• Staff feeling confident, supported and included, regardless of their own unique identities and needs.
• An organisational culture that normalises the reality that we may all have difficulties at some point and should seek support without a sense of stigma.
• A range of reasonable adjustments that support staff with needs related to neurodivergence or communication in producing their best work.
• Maintaining and strengthening our links with the Family Justice Council, Racial Justice Family Network and Family Justice Young People’s Board to ensure we contribute to and remain focussed on improvements in inclusive practice within the Family Justice System.

Maintaining a diversity focus in our learning and development programme 

• Retaining a focus on practitioners learning from each other, sharing knowledge and using our diversity data to inform L&D priorities.
• Upcoming diversity related training includes
  • Focus on the impact of racism on Children and Young People
  • Specific domestic abuse sessions focussed on the intersection of domestic abuse: where one or both partners are disabled and / or neurodivergent; in LGBTQ+ relationships; in different cultures.
  • Training on the importance of faith, drawing on our data about the most prevalent faiths of those we work with.
  • Providing updated training in respect of how to work with children and young people with disabilities
• Increased organisational confidence in addressing and focussing on issues relating to sex and gender, and how these impact children and young people. Remaining sighted on case law and developing Welsh Government guidance and developing training around this.

Insight, data and accountability

• Achieving complete diversity information capture, with all staff understanding the importance of this.
• Maintaining annual analysis of diversity data and sharing with stakeholders as relevant.
• Using our diversity data alongside other data to review and understand the needs of those people we work with.