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Disability impacts 1 in 5 people globally. Disability is a complex, deep, and broad lived experience that is often misunderstood and under-represented. Elizabeth Wright knows this because of her own lived experience with limb difference. An activist, speaker and consultant, Elizabeth believes that education is the key to creating a more inclusive, accessible and welcoming world for all disabled people.

Through the use of story in her writing, workshops, resources and speaking, Elizabeth takes her audience on challenging and insightful journeys. Through consultation Elizabeth supports schools/businesses/organisations to address their structures and cultures to make sure that they understand what inclusion looks like for disabled people that they may engage with every single day, i.e., employees, clients, customers, and students. Elizabeth believes it is possible to make every space and organisation disability friendly, and she wants to help you achieve this.

How can you work with Elizabeth to make a positive impact on disability at your organisation? Book her to speak at your next event. Book her to deliver her series of “What is Disability?” “Issues Disabled People Face” and “Be a Better Disability Ally” workshops. Book an initial consultation call to discuss what needs you have and to discover how she can make your organisation a place and space that all disabled people would want to be a part of.

Elizabeth is also editor of Conscious Being publication on Medium. It is a publication that promotes disabled women’s voices and pays disabled women writers to contribute. You can support Conscious Being paying their writers through Patreon. Elizabeth is also editor of Disability Review Magazine.

Elizabeth is a Paralympic medalist. In more recent years she has become a global inspirational speaker on disability, character, and resilience, culminating in her TEDx talk – Emily SENDs Her Love.

Founded in April 2020 by two passionate male primary teachers, Matt Withers and Mike Keys, Men Teach Primary is on a mission to ensure that one day every child has the opportunity to be taught by a male primary school teacher.

Their purpose is to create a global support network for men to share and celebrate their passion for primary teaching. They have three core values: to celebrate men who teach primary, to empower men to challenge damaging stereotypes and ultimately inspire the next generation of male primary teachers.

We are a network of LGBT+ teachers and leaders, empowering us to be authentic in schools, colleges and universities, to support students and to be an advocate for increasing LGBT+ visibility in our education system. Launched in 2018, we have already seen a range of successes including national recognition from the DfE, investment from a large publisher and two successful leadership programmes where 75% of participants have achieved promotions in their schools.

We are affecting real change for teachers and leaders in order to make schools more inclusive. We use our links with universities – in particular the Centre for LGBTQ inclusion – to share research into being ‘out’ at work in schools and colleges. Our Proud Leadership and LGBTed Leadership programmes support LGBT+ teachers who need our guidance – including coaching and mentoring – with the aim to be the ‘go to’ provider of leadership development for LGBT+ educators.

The first LGBTed book, ‘Big Gay Adventures In Education’ – edited by co-founder and director Daniel Tomlinson-Gray – comes out (excuse the pun) in early 2021. It contains 24 unique and empowering accounts by ‘out’ teachers and students of ‘out’ teachers, showing the importance of visible and authentic LGBT+ role models in schools. With contributions by Andrew Moffatt MBE, Sue Sanders, Adele Bates and Hadley Stewart, it will be unique and unmissable.

Later this year, we are also launching the first ever Masters in LGBT+ School Leadership in partnership with the National College of Education, as well as the third cohort of our Proud Leadership programme.

Join us for our weekly chats on Twitter using the hashtag #LGBTedchat every Thursday in term time from 7.00 – 7.30pm.

Gendered Intelligence (GI) is a trans-led charity working across the UK.

Our mission is to increase understandings of gender diversity.

Our vision is of a world where people are no longer constrained by narrow perceptions and expectations of gender, and where diverse gender expressions are visible and valued.

We work with the trans community and those who impact on trans lives; we particularly specialise in supporting young trans people aged 8-25.

Institute for Educational & Social Equity is a specialist Equity, Diversity & Inclusion Institute. We are the only independent Tertiary level institution of its kind in the UK.

We are a Google for Education institution, and a member of the UK Register of Learning Providers – Registration number: 10092202

Our services are available to any organisation or institution interested in developing and/or implementing research-led or research-informed interventions, which is our USP.

We offer a range of services, built on three pillars: research, capacity development and institutional support.

We work with clients on single or intersectional concerns, to strengthen individual and organisational understandings, and to secure improvements to practice and outcomes.

Our vision is to build a future of inclusion and social justice. We do this by equipping you and your communities with the knowledge, skills and confidence to embed gender, gender identity and sexual orientation into the fabric of your organisation. With a focus on the experiences, representation and inclusion of LGBT+ people, in partnership with you we make society a more welcoming place for everyone.

E&C are an experienced team of teachers and youth workers led by CEO Dr Elly Barnes MBE; since 2005 the team have been busy making their own schools LGBT+Friendly, giving them the knowledge to confidently guide schools and organisations through the change process throughout the UK, Europe and Internationally. The team is continually developing training programmes, policies and resources that directly respond to the needs of young people, teachers and families.

Focussing on the guiding principles of Training, Policy, Curriculum, Environment and Community the team aspire to:

You can read more about E&C and their founder & CEO Dr Elly Barnes MBE here.

You can read more about our successful strategies in How to successfully transform your school into an LGBT+ friendly place: A practical guide for nursery, primary and secondary teachers by Dr Elly Barnes MBE and Dr Anna Carlile.

We believe every young person should grow up feeling confident about their looks. That’s why we’ve developed Confident Me, a set of evidence-based resources for teachers and schools aimed at 11-14 year olds.

Aligned to promote adolescent body confidence, the free downloadable tools are designed to allow teachers and schools to run body-confidence workshops. The workshops allow teachers and pupils to explore the impact that image ideals portrayed through the media have on young people’s self-esteem.

Low body confidence and self-esteem affect young people’s learning. Anxiety about appearance has been linked to poorer concentration and less engagement in class, resulting in worse academic performance. Globally, 8 out of 10 girls admit to opting out of important everyday activities, such as engaging with friends or loved ones, because of concern about their looks.

There are single and five-session tools designed to adapt to your time frame. Both tools have been proven to make a positive impact on improving body confidence. The workshops explore how society, professional and social media promote an unrealistic ‘ideal’ body, and learn strategies to protect and build self-confidence in themselves and others.

Who are Diversity Role Models?

Diversity Role Models actively seeks to embed inclusion and empathy in the next generation. Our vision is a world where everyone embraces diversity and can thrive. This will help create a world where future generations embrace, accept and support difference. Our mission is to create an education system in which every young person will know they are valued and supported, whoever they are.

What do we do?

We create safe spaces where young people can explore difference and consider their role in creating a world where we all feel accepted. Our student workshops feature LGBT+ or ally role models who speak openly about their lived experiences, building young people’s empathy so they can understand the (often unintended) impact of their language and actions. In order to ensure sustained change we supplement this by training school governors, staff, and parents/carers.

National Association of Head Teachers: Charity Partner 2020-21

Winner of Gay Times Honour for Education 2018

Charity of the Year: European Diversity Awards 2018

Black Teachers Connect was established in 2018 as a result of Rhia’s experience when applying to train to teach. When she was writing her application for her PGCE, she wanted to seek advice from other Black educators on their experiences in the classroom and of working in the education system. Unfortunately, she couldn’t find a network directly for this.

Rhia created Black Teachers Connect so nobody else would have the same experience as her. The aim of Black Teachers Connect is to bring together Black Teachers in the UK and Worldwide by providing them with network opportunities, advice, and support. It is widely known that some Black educators have experienced racism and discrimination at work with 53% of BME educators not seeing themselves in the profession in the next five years.

Our aim is to have a support system in place to not only help the recruitment of teachers but also the retention. We have connected with over 1,500 individuals via both Twitter and Instagram and we have recently launched a Facebook page to make it even easier for educators to connect and to create a further safe space for individuals.

We have helped to support aspiring teachers and training teachers as they begin their journey into teaching. We are providing virtual CPD sessions. We are also supporting all educators on how to tackle issues of race and diversity in the classroom, from having uncomfortable conversations to creating inclusive resources.

The Big Think is a learning programme that empowers children to create meaningful relationships with themselves, others and the world around them. The world is in desperate need of a learning revolution. Too many schools are stuck in a standardised routine and struggle to create the conditions in which children’s natural abilities and creativity can flourish. We create opportunities for children to develop this agency, in order to better navigate and impact the world around them. With us, schools can begin to lay the foundations of learning for life, not just academia. We take teachers and the wider school community through a collaborative and experiential training in order to facilitate the effective delivery of the TBT programme.

It takes a village to raise a child.

We view education as a system of closely connected parts that need to constantly interact together. To this end, we embrace all staff, children, parents and the wider community into our programmes.

Just like life, learning is not linear. We equip schools with the tools to support children aged 5 to 11, with their personal growth and sense of self, organically. We do this using a values-based programme that promotes the expansion of social and emotional development, which in turn enhances cognitive growth and mental processing. With TBT, children learn to validate and reflect on their emotions and social interactions within a global context. From using critical integrity to spot fake news to spreading kindness during the coronavirus global pandemic, The Big Think develops 21st century skills for life.