Supporting our LGBTIQA+ staff

Text on screen – Warren Pearson, Pride Champion

[Speaker – Warren Pearson, Pride Champion]

I'm Warren Pearson. I'm very proud to be the Pride Champion for the Department of Social Services. I identify as being a gay man, and my pronouns are he, him, his. I look like George Clooney. No, I actually am a very average looking middle aged man. I'm 57, going gray slowly, getting wider slowly. That's my visual identification. 

Text on screen - What does it mean to be a Diversity Champion?

Being a diversity champion is providing leadership. Leadership primarily to our LGBTQIA+ staff members, but leadership across the department. Leadership for the allies and leadership for people who are struggling, perhaps with staff, community members, family members. Struggling to understand the experience, how how they might best support them. Being Warren, who happens to be a gay man. I think has been, leadership in a way. My job as the Pride Champion for the department is to industrialise that. Is to make that bigger so that other people feel confident about being their full selves at work. And when they face challenges in their lives, in their work, there's a group of people that they can turn to. There are resources that they can turn to. There are policies in the department that support them, because being a member of the rainbow community is intensely personal. It's about your very, very sense of self. 

Text on screen – What is a goal you want to achieve in the role?

They're not only my goals, they're the goals of the Committee, and the staff that kind of, I represent as a, as a Champion. I think they’re internal goals and external goals. Internally, we need to make sure that all staff bring their whole selves to work, and that we support the rest of the department in supporting them to be able to do that. And we do that by building people's capability, by training and there’s formal training, there's a whole range of things on STAFFnet. We, we need to do more in that space though, we need to do some face to face training for people as well. But there's awareness days, you know, there's the opportunity to come and show you support and learn at IDAHOBIT and Wear it Purple Day. Important watershed moments where the department can stop and come together and celebrate and look to do better in this space. Externally, it's about making sure that our policies, our payments, our programs, are inclusive. Inclusive of rainbow families, inclusive of all Australians, however they live, including LGBTQIA+ citizens. And in bringing all staff, bringing their full selves to work, means that those policies and the briefs they write to the Minister, the GOG’s that they write, if they're developing programs, the advice they provide, means that this department best serves all Australians for who they are, where they live and the lives that they live. So it's a pretty ambitious goal. But they linked, you know, if we have the best staff, the best capability, we will have the best policies programs and we will serve Australians and improve their lifetime wellbeing brilliantly. 

Text on screen – How is your role as a Champion reflected in your day-to-day work?

I've always been out at work. I've been lucky in that regard. so in a way, I continued my day-to-day work life is very much the same. But as a Champion, I've got a a spotlight. My job is to focus on particular issues, particular people, particular days of celebration and really amplify the good work of the Committee. We've got a fantastic SES Champion, two absolutely brilliant Co-chairs, and my job is to back them in and amplify their good work. Like the rest of the department, we go through a stage of learning and growing and asking questions, respectfully engaging. And so I think as a Champion, I'm going to be learning, and I hope the department learns alongside me. And my job is to to lead that learning.