Age Concern Birmingham

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Corporate Information

Find out more about us:

Chief Executive

Senior Management Team

Mission Statement

Values Statement

Our Diversity and Equality

Corporate Priorities

Board of Membership
Board meetings are held at Head Office, Coleshill House, Sutton Coldfield, four times each year in February, May, July and November with the AGM in September. Trustees are volunteers and give their time freely. They have a role outline, a Code of Conduct and a Volunteer Contract.

Below you will see the current Board Membership for, how long each one has served as a Trustee and the current offices they hold:

David Leigh [from September 2008] Chair and Treasurer
Lady Knowles [from February 1987] Secretary
Janet McLeod [from September 2004]
Ted Goodman [from February 2010]

Shirley A Goode - Chief Executive
Shirley joined Age Concern Birmingham as Chief Executive in October 1998. She previously worked with Anchor Trust and The Royal Society, Mencap. Over the last 10 years ACB has grown and developed significantly and has a competent and impressive Senior Management Team and a dedicated workforce. In addition to holding an MBA, Shirley is a Fellow of the Institute of Welfare, a qualified Mentor and a qualified NLP Practitioner

	Teresa Smith - Director of Administration & Quality Teresa Smith joined Age Concern Birmingham in September 1996 having previously worked for The Royal Society, MENCAP. Teresa became Director of Administration & Quality in 2004 and her overall responsibilities include Human Resources, Volunteers and Quality.
	Ian Mackintosh - Director of Development Iain joined Age Concern Birmingham in July 2005 to take up the post of Service Development Manager where he successfully built upon the portfolio of services delivered by Age Concern Birmingham and has since progressed to Head of Development. He has held this position since September 2006
	Elaine Jones - Director of Operations Elaine Jones joined Age Concern Birmingham in Nov 2000, as Development Manager. In 2002 she transferred into Operations and in November 2003 was promoted to Director of Operations. Elaine is from a health care background and was a trained nurse and midwife. She brings to the organisation a wealth of experience from her nursing background, cemented by 4 years within the Business community as a Nursing Agency Manager and Business Development Manager. She now oversees operational projects and services and is responsible for developing strong links and relationships with key social and health care professionals.
	Sheila Sharman – Head of Finance Sheila joined Age Concern Birmingham in October 2001 as Finance Manager and she had since progressed to Head of Finance. She has held this position since November 2009.

Our Mission Statement

Age Concern Birmingham is committed to improving the quality of life of older people, older disabled people, their carers and families, across all sections of the community by:

Creating development opportunities that respond positively to change.
Empowering older people through the promotion of choice, independence and involvement.
Engaging with older people, our volunteers, staff, trustees, funders, partners and potential partners.
Delivering high quality localised services to meet identified needs.

As the acknowledged leader in quality service provision for a diverse and ageing population, Age Concern Birmingham will exceed all expectations in a rapidly changing, challenging and competitive environment.

Values Statement

We will:
1. Respect the dignity and individuality of all clients, service users, staff members and volunteers and value their knowledge, skills and experience.

2. Provide and promote equality of opportunity in all aspects of our service and services, care and personal development. Diversity will be respected and welcomed, discrimination based on prejudice will not be accepted.

3. Share in providing and maintaining a working environment, which is healthy, safe and secure and we will have regard to our wider environment and our effect on it.

4. Involve our staff in decisions that effect their lives or work by appropriate consultation. Our underlying principles will be those of empowerment and this applies to all older people, our staff and to others with whom we come into contact.

5. Manage our resources with a shared responsibility to be prudent in the use of time and money and the resources contributed by our trustees, staff and volunteers.

6. Encourage a climate of open debate and discussion but will uphold the principle of confidentiality for all clients, volunteers and staff.

7. Encourage the sharing of good practice and the development of knowledge, skills and potential and will respect professional standards.

8. Each have a personal responsibility to be sensitive to the consequences of our actions on other people. Intimidation, verbal or physical abuse will never be accepted.

9. Work together in teams and in partnerships with other organisations when this will add value to the work we do.

10. Celebrate our successes and learn from our mistakes. We have a shared responsibility to continue to learn and improve as individuals and as an organisation.

Our Diversity & Equality Commitment

1. Statement Policy on Equal Opportunities
Prejudice, ignorance, apathy and fear lead to discrimination. Discrimination denies our human dignity, our freedom to be ourselves, and our place in a free society. When even one person is deprived of these basic human rights, we are all diminished.

Our service users:
Age Concern Birmingham is committed to the welfare of all older people and their carers and to maintaining their individual dignity and their worth to society. It supports the proposed Commission for Equality and Human Rights that will help tackle ageism, as well as other forms of discrimination against older people. It also welcomes the new legislation introduced by government in 2006 to outlaw age discrimination in employment and adult education.

It holds to the principle that all older people should receive equal rights but, in addition to this that the differences between people in terms of their age, gender and race should be recognised and respected.

Our service users will also be made aware that they have an obligation not to discriminate.

Our applicants and employees:
This organisation aims to ensure that no job applicant or employee receives less favourable treatment on the grounds of race, colour, nationality, religion, ethnic or national origin, age, gender, gender reassignment or marital status, sexual orientation or disability. Selection criteria and procedures are regularly reviewed to ensure that individuals are treated on the basis of their relevant merits and abilities. All employees will be given equal opportunity and access to training to enable them to progress both within and outside the organisation. This organisation is committed to a programme of action to make this policy effective and will bring it to the attention of all employees.

All employees have a legal and moral obligation not to discriminate and to report incidents of discrimination against any individual or group of individuals. Any employee found to be discriminating will face disciplinary proceedings.

2. Statement Policy on Diversity
Diversity means difference and people's differences can be many and varied [the following list is not exhaustive]:

Race
Culture
National origin
Region
Gender
Sexual Orientation
Age
Marital status
Politics
Religion
Ethnicity
Disability
Socio-economic differences
Family structure
Values

This organisation recognises, respects and is striving for diversity. Individuals will not be perceived as speaking for a particular group and not having any other contribution to make. It holds to the principle that all employees should receive equal rights but, in addition to this, that the differences between people in terms of their gender and race should be recognised and respected.

We will do this by valuing the varying qualities that different employees bring to the organisation, and strive to create an environment where everyone feels valued for their individual talents and where his or her skills and competencies are fully utilised.

We believe that this will bring to our organisation a wide range of experience, ideas and creativity, whilst giving each individual a feeling of being enabled to work to their full potential.

3. Statement Policy on Age and the Workplace
Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006 came into force on 1 October 2006, making it unlawful to discriminate against workers, employees, job seekers and trainees because of their age. Age Concern Birmingham, as a charity that specifically serves the needs of people over the age of fifty, has always been particularly aware of age discrimination and current policies and procedures reflect that awareness. Fairness at work and good job performance go hand in hand. Tackling discrimination helps to attract, motivate and retain staff and enhances our reputation as an employer. Eliminating discrimination helps everyone to have an equal opportunity to work and to develop their skills. Employees who are subjected to discrimination, harassment or victimisation may be unhappy, less productive and less motivated.

Age Concern Birmingham will continue to seek to outlaw all forms of workplace discrimination on the grounds of age. We will not discriminate either directly or indirectly, or subject an individual to harassment or victimisation on the grounds of their age.

We will avoid age discrimination by being age positive. Some of the ways are listed below and are not exhaustive:

Our recruitment advertisements will avoid age-specific language or specifying length of experience as this disadvantages certain age groups.
Our selection procedures will continue to avoid stereotypes by using a fair and unbiased scoring system.
Our application forms will not ask for date of birth or age [this will only be asked for on detachable equality monitoring forms].
Our training is open to all employees regardless of age and any specific entry criteria will be clearly explained and justifiable. The style and location of training will be reviewed to ensure there are no barriers to any particular age group.
Our performance appraisals will set the same standards regardless of age. Comments about age or maturity should not be made or used as part of decision making following appraisals.
Our redundancy policy will not use length of service to select employees. Last in, First out [LIFO] will not be used unless objective justification can be applied as contained within the policy.
The national default retirement age is now 65 with the right to request to continue working after that age.
Age Concern Birmingham's Terms and Conditions of service and general staff benefits will be applied fairly to all employees regardless of age.

4. Statement Policy on Cultural Awareness
Cultural awareness and sensitivity entails developing an understanding of ethnic and national groups. It involves internal changes in terms of attitudes and values and a position of openness and flexibility.

We know that cultural differences as well as similarities exist, without assigning values i.e. better or worse, right or wrong - to those differences.

5. Statement Policy on Promoting Race Equality
Our commitment to diversity and equality is further strengthened by this specific statement on cultural awareness and racial equality.

Racial harassment is defined as any form of behaviour that has the effect of intimidating, humiliating, ridiculing and/or undermining the confidence of a person or group of people due to their colour, nationality or ethnic group.
Examples may include:

Oral or physical abuse
Derogatory comments and/or jokes
Written abuse including graffiti
The display of offensive material
Different treatment ie, excluding, penalising or treating less favourably where it cannot be shown to be justifiable.

We expect all employees within our organisation to:

Show respect for others irrespective of their culture, national, ethnic or religious background
Report incidents of racism to an appropriate person
Be prepared to act as a witness for any racist incident that they may experience