Speak Up Month 2023 - National Guardian's Office

Summary

Every year in October we celebrate Speak Up Month – a month to raise awareness of Freedom to Speak Up and make speaking up business as usual for everyone.

The theme for this year’s Speak Up Month is Breaking Barriers.

There are many things which can stop people from speaking up.

Being afraid of what might happen or feeling that you won’t be listened to can stop people from speaking up. They may be worried because of their background, their heritage or their experience. They may feel they might not be listened to because of their banding, their circumstances or their job role.

This October we will be raising awareness of some of the barriers to speaking up. By highlighting them, we hope to give people the confidence to overcome these barriers and make speaking up business as usual.

Raising awareness of the barriers to speaking up is also an opportunity for leaders across the sector to understand and work to address and remove them. This will help foster an inclusive environment that encourages speaking up, listening up and following up.

Throughout October we will be sharing blogs, vlogs and videos examining some of the barriers – whether that’s ethnicity, sexuality, disability, seniority, profession, contract terms, or pressures of time and resources.

To show your visible support for breaking down these barriers to speaking up, we are encouraging everyone to take part in “Wear Green Wednesdays” throughout October.

We are also inviting poems about Freedom to Speak Up from people working in the healthcare sector as part of National Poetry Day. These will be shared on our new Instagram feed.

If you would like to get involved in Speak Up Month, whether that’s by contributing a poem, a blog, a message of support or your own speaking up story, do get in touch and follow along on this website.