We want our services to be for everybody and our service users to be treated equally. To ensure this is happening when people access our support, we ask for information such as gender and ethnicity. This helps us to improve our services and to understand if there are people we could be better at supporting.

Ensuring we are reaching the whole community

16% of Richmond Borough residents are from a Black, Asian or Minority Ethnic background, and around 15% are from White non-British backgrounds. Monitoring ethnicity enables us to see whether the changes we put in place are making a difference. We also monitor types of disabilities to make sure our buildings and services are accessible for everybody.

We need to ensure our services help people of all genders, including transgender people. People who identify as LGBTQ+ are at a higher risk of mental health difficulties such as depression, suicidal thoughts and self-harm. By comparing the number of our service users who identify as LGBTQ+ with national data, we can ensure we are reaching the LGBTQ+ community.

People can experience mental health difficulties at any age. We monitor age to make sure we are reaching all age groups. We monitor information on the number of households that include dependent children to ensure issues such as childcare are not stopping people from using our services. We also monitor religion to understand if there are barriers that may be stopping people using our services. 

Your data is handled in line with the Data Protection Act 2018. If you have any questions please contact us at [email protected]