Listening Together

People were asked to vote on the challenge or area that they would most want to see action towards. They chose:

1. Recognise the need for “good, quality, safe, suitable homes as a starting point for good schools, jobs, banks, benefits, health.”
2. Address “homelessness – not fair access is sometimes an issue.”
3. Tackle “low expectations from teachers, scarring young children, diverting them from their chosen careers, sending a not good enough message.”

Skills meant different things to different people. Some people talked about qualifications, while others talked about life skills and hobbies. Everyone agreed that change is needed to give people from racialised communities more opportunities to develop skills, and to encourage them to follow their passions.

People told us that the most important steps to getting better skills would be:

People’s top ideas for getting better skills were:

• To address “low expectations from teachers” which are diverting people from their chosen careers” making them feel that they are “not good enough” to pursue their dreams.
• Encourage “lifelong learning” for all focusing on all types of skills and acknowledge that “skills do not equal qualifications.”
• Connect people to skills and opportunities” through initiatives such as “travel and money”.
• Tackle “internal and external barriers” to getting skills including the “education forces people into a box” rather than encouraging them to pursue their passions.

People told us that jobs are important for offering someone security, purpose and “dignity.” However, people also felt that race inequality plays a significant part in them not being able to get the jobs they want.

People asked policy makers and employers to:

• Think differently about “how we value all jobs and roles.” This included to respect that people may have different “cultural choices and options.”
• Make younger generations a priority, ensure that they don’t face bias and offer careers advice at an early stage.
• Tackle discrimination and “see what everyone can bring to the table.” People talked about giving everyone fair access to opportunity and the need for more inclusive leadership: “you can’t be what you can’t see.”

Housing was a top priority to the people we listened to. People talked about housing as a “starting point” for having a healthy and successful life. However, people also felt that housing was “not affordable, poor quality and unsafe.” Many talked about discrimination in the system.

People’s top priorities for making housing fairer were to:

• Provide housing that is “good, quality, safe, adequate and suitable.” They said homes should meet people’s “transport, health, community, faith, physical, mental and wellbeing needs.”
• Tackling homelessness.
• Codesigning housing with communities, to ensure that it is truly adequate and appropriate.

People told us that transport plays an important role in giving people access to opportunities and helping them to stay connected with their families or community networks. However, they also felt that transport in the West Midlands is unsafe, unreliable, unaffordable, “difficult and not convenient.”

People’s main ideas for improving transport were to:

• Make transport safer and tackle poor lighting and racial harassment on the public transport network.
• Better engage communities, including to speak in their language, to ensure that passengers from diverse backgrounds are not overlooked.
• Make public transport more reliable and affordable.