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a lot about ally ship and has been a really, uh, strong force on Twitter for trying to make these movements, um, to bring diversity into forefront. Uh, Simon's I I did see you a second ago. I can't see you now. I am still here. I should still be somewhere lovely. Hi. Nice to meet you. Virtually, uh, fabulous over to you then. Simon's Simon's going to talk to us about. I liked it cool. Thank you very much. And And thank you for allowing me to go last today because I had to run out my trauma list to be like, Hey, cool by I'll do the the optio later by, um uh, yeah, So I'm I'm Simon's. I'm, uh ST eight in the in the, uh, London. Dean Ary. Um And I guess when you're going to do a talk about ally ship, I have to address the elephant in the room, Which in this case is, uh, is is me. Um I am straight. I am white. I am private school educated. I a man. And there's nothing fundamentally that I can do about these things. Uh, there's nothing I can change about these things, but What they give me is power and privilege. And as Spiderman's uncle Ben said, with great power comes great responsibility. No saying all that talks around Ally ship and advocacy and all that sort of stuff often sound or look unashamedly like a humble brag. You must. You must see it a lot on social media at work, the kind of virtue signaling, you know, look at all the things I have on my lanyard. Uh, I'm such a great ally. I you know, where's my prize? Where's my reward? And actually, I think a big part of the the challenging conversation around Ally Ship and advocacy is it's It's a kind of throwaway word now. Yeah, I'm Yeah, I'm an ally. I'm pro everything and the anti whatever you don't like. Uh, and so I I try to unpack what it means to be to be an ally, to be an advocate. Uh, and I've kind of got them into the forays, if you like. So the first person is apathetic. They they don't care. They have no understanding of the issues. Nor do they have any real interest in becoming more involved, more engaged. They, when asked, will tell you it's not a problem. It's never affected me. I don't really see these things in my life. And what blows my mind is the number of people that are in this space and they say, you know well, no one's no one's ever harassed me, So it must not happen. And you're like, Well, aren't you lucky or no? They're all, um, there's no sex. What was recently? There's no sexism in, uh, in the NHS because if there if there was, I'd know. Okay, The next is someone who's aware they know the basic concepts. They're not active on behalf of others. But if you ask them, they will say, I understand that bullying is not acceptable. Undermining is not acceptable that discrimination and harassment are not okay. They will, if pushed, be able to explain maybe why they're not okay, be able to talk about impact on patient care and so on. But that's an awareness of these issues, but they won't go out of their way to do anything to change anything. Then you have someone who's active. They are well informed. They share and seek information, but often need prompting. So, you know, uh, Seidman. Don't forget no mammals. Diverse committee. Diverse conference. Yeah. All right, fine. Simon, have you done your your e d I training? Don't Don't forget, these are the things we can say. These are the things we can't say. These are the things we should and shouldn't say. And these are why Oh, yeah, No. Right. Good. I read something recently that's that's important. And then then you have the advocate being an advocate. A real one is hard. It's really, really hard work. Because being a true advocate, being an ally means that you are committed routinely daily weekly to proactively choosing to champion these behaviors, to live your values. And and that's the bit that I think not everyone can get their head around is people say, Yeah, no, I'm I'm definitely an ally. I'm definitely an advocate, you know, on on on my theater days. Yeah, I really do that. What about your clinic days? What about your weekends? What about when you get that email? But you're on holiday. You can't just turn it on and turn it off. It is a set of core values that you have to choose to abide by. So What does it mean? What does it mean to be an ally? The next bit about being an ally that's really hard beyond choosing to be one is that the big ask of ally ship is something that most of us are rubbish at and it's shutting up. It's shutting up and listening. Now we know that we interrupt our patient's within the within 30 to 60 seconds. They start talking and we instantly focus down. We got to get to the point time, time, time, talk, talk, talk. But being an ally is about accepting that. It's not about you. The conversation, the narrative, the challenge and your urge to be, yeah, but well, actually isn't helpful. A really ally has to get used to listening actively listening so that when someone says, you know what I I experienced some some homophobia today in clinic from so and so your first instinct mustn't be Oh, well, you know what he's like. Oh, well, they were joking. Or, you know, it was banter. Your your instinct has to be. Do you want to tell me more about that? Wow, that sounds awful. It's about listening and and part of accepting that it's not about you means that you recognize that those struggles those, uh, system oppressions or what have your behaviors? You have to take them on as your own without taking ownership of them, which is really hard. It's a weird flavor of empathy and sympathy whereby you go, that is awful. But it's not about me. But I'm going to take on that fight because I have all this privilege and all this power. That means I can make a difference. And by doing that, what you're doing is you're transferring your privilege because again, the classic mistake people make is they think that they can save people that they're a white knight. Don't worry, stand back, I'll help. And actually, it's about transferring that privilege and that power to someone, which means, for example, you can't. You can't speak four people. You can amplify their voices. You know, you should really listening to so and so or, you know, you absolutely shouldn't have me on that panel. Do you know who you should have on that panel? These people? Or you should read the article by these people that you maybe not heard of that Aren't the same faces and the same names. It's about amplifying those voices, sponsoring, enabling and empowering, not speaking for. It's about standing next to not in front of part of acknowledging that that conversation isn't about you is standing up even when you're scared. Because if you're honest, if you're scared, imagine how scary it must be for people who maybe don't have the privileges that you have, whatever that might be in whatever context, that might be one of the most difficult bits I talk about when I talk about the work I've done the work other people have done, uh, is about owning your mistakes. So a big part of Ally Ship and advocacy is about recognizing that you're going to get it wrong. You will. I've had so many times where I've said the wrong thing, done the wrong thing and again, your your your initial defense is to make excuses or to get upset because you know, you've been trying so hard you've been working so hard you put so much effort into it. And now what? People are upset with you. They're angry with you and wait, it's not about you. So it's about mastering the art of an authentic apology, which means d centering yourself, taking yourself out of the middle of it all, taking away the pride and the ego and recognizing that if you cock up, it is entirely likely that you will say, Look, uh, I am I am really, really sorry. I got it wrong. I've learned from it, I will do better next time, and that's where it stops. No excuses, No, but And you have to accept that you may not get the closure you want from that apology, they may still block you on social media. You may not get a Christmas card from them. They may still kind of think you're an ass, but it's not about you. It's about what you're advocating for, which means the apology, by definition, can't be about you either. It's about accepting that your your education is is up to you. It's not someone's job to sit you down and go. Can I please explain to you, in words of one syllable what it's like to be a person of color member of the LGBTQ community? Whatever. If you're going to do this, if you're going to say, Look, I I stand for something, you have to go away and you have to do your own homework. Now I recognize that too many that sounds a really hard be really tiring and isolating and exhausting and all those things. And you know what it is? There's no pretending about. It is. But nobody's asking everyone to be stood on a soapbox outside, shouting into the void about whatever, but the one thing everyone can be the one kind of advocate or alli everyone can be is an active bystander. So there's papers around active bystander stuff and there's there's loads of training about it. But there's there's, there's fundamentally there's four DS of being an active bystander. So if you witness a behavior, a macro aggression or a microaggression or something that just doesn't feel right, it just doesn't sit right with you. The first D, if you like, is Delegation. It is okay to take a long, hard look in the mirror to reflect and go. Yeah, this fight is out of my wage bracket. Wait eight bracket. Whatever. I am not in a position to deal with this. It is okay to ask someone else to intervene to reach out to a appear or a near to peer and go. Look, I I saw something that doesn't sit well with me. I saw something, and I or I was part of something. I was, you know, in the group when the joke was made, whatever it was, but I don't feel I can be the one to raise this. It doesn't feel safe for me. It doesn't feel good. There's a power dynamic here or whatever. It's okay to delegate. It's okay to delay. Actually, as an advocate, you don't always have to be charging in. It is all right to go. Yeah, that that wasn't okay, but I I need to go away. I need to think about how to approach this. How to handle this, who I'm going to speak to and how I'm going to speak to them. How do I have a respectful conversation that starts with what you did yesterday Wasn't okay. And this is why. And and it's okay to to unpack that and whether it's you know, I think some of our colleagues were upset by that. Or can I just let you know about how that made me feel? It is okay to go away and organize those thoughts. Especially, for example, if what's happened has made you angry or upset. Sometimes you can take that and you can focus that into something powerful and useful. And other times you can recognize that it's just not what's needed to bring around change, because sometimes we just want to see heads roll. We just want to burn someone in effigy. And actually an advocate and ally often wants to bring around change, which is harder, which takes time and effort. It's also okay to distract. You know, uh, one of my colleagues talks about micro affirmations. So you you hear some kind of, you know what the classic example is like, Uh, here is Mr Fleming and Mr Done and Cape and it's okay to go? Well, actually, it's It's Professor So and said Ms so and so or actually I'm the registrar. But the person you want to be speaking to is right here. It's also okay to distract using humor. Um, excuse me, I I heard raised voices and I was hoping it was about food, because why else would someone be shouting in a corridor? It is okay to distract to break things up and again. That gives you time to process work out what's going on to refocus the team, redirect the conversation. And, yeah, sometimes you just have to declare there are some behaviors that just that just will not stand. And and there's that phrase that I I used loads, which is what you permit you promote. And there are certain things that you just can't walk past that you just can't delegate. You can't delay. You can't distract. You can't ignore both, uh, the people that are experiencing it, but for yourself as well. Uh, so you can sleep at night so that you can look at yourself in the mirror and it is okay to to step in and go Look, I I can see that everyone here is a bit stressed, but I really am going to have to ask everyone to to just stop and breathe and and is there something I can do to help? Because what I think I heard is not acceptable. And And for me, the the job of advocacy and ally ship is about recognizing that that the best time to change culture was undeniably hundreds of years ago. But the second best time is today, and no one's asking you to be a hero to be a lanyard wearing fighting every fight person. What they're asking you to do is to is to leave your values. It's to do the best you can until you know better. And once you know better, do better. And the best way to know better is to shut up and listen. Thank you very much. Thank you, Simond. That was a very powerful talk. Thank you. Um