by Sanjay Dhrona, OS Director - Diversity, Equality & Inclusion
The festive season is well and truly over season, but not for our dear friends and members of The Outstanding Society, we thought we owed you a little gift… one that is practical, thoughtful, and designed to help you support people with confidence and care.
Let’s be honest -I am a cisgender, gay man with Indian heritage, born and raised in the UK, and even I find this confusing sometimes.
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DE&I) can feel tough, complex, and overwhelming, especially if you’re a small or independent provider without much experience supporting people who are part of the rainbow community. And language -the words we choose, the confidence with which we use them -matters deeply. Yet it can be hard to know where to start.
If we’re honest, much of the DE&I training available isn’t great. It’s repetitive, uninspired, and often fails to teach us anything new. It doesn’t turn the dial forward -and at OSDF, we believe meaningful change must be practical, relevant, and centred on real experience.
Why We Created the OutStanding Diversity Forum
We created the OSDF to help members of The Outstanding Society -and the wider adult social care sector -meet the needs of LGBTQ+ team members and those they support.
At its heart, the Forum is about learning together -from leaders, practitioners, and those with lived experience from every part of adult social care. We believe that when our sector collaborates with openness and curiosity, we can build services that are safer, kinder, and more person-centred.
Beginning the Conversation
At our roundtable at The Care Show in Birmingham, we started an important conversation:
What do services need to meaningfully support LGBTQ+ people, and how do we create resources that actually help rather than simply tick boxes?
Our goal was clear -to provide tangible tools, designed by LGBTQ+ people, that reflect the realities of care practice today. Resources that are relevant, usable, and supportive.
The First Output: The OSDF Language Guide
Our first output is the new Language Guide. Inspired by VIDA Healthcare’s Vidasaurus, and my work at The Close with our CLOSEtionary, we wanted to create something simple, practical, and impactful.
This guide is designed to help leaders train, support, and empower teams with a printable reference that supports confident, respectful communication -both about those we support, and with each other. It can be used in supervisions, inductions, group training, and everyday practice.
And as OS members -you’re on the nice list -so you get it for free.
Why It Matters
Care plans and recording are central to our work. The language we use -compassionate, clear, respectful -isn’t just semantics. It is evidence of our values, our practice, and our quality.
Supporting people means placing them at the heart of the care they help us design. Using the right language is one of the most meaningful ways we can do that.
The landscape is ever-changing, and this guide is a starting point -but an important one. You can adapt it, build on it, and even create your own service-specific version. The key is that it helps people feel seen, safe, and respected.
How to Use the Guide
- Share it with your whole team
- Use it in supervisions and inductions
- Ask your residents and community if anything is missing
- Adapt it to reflect your people and your service
- Audit its impact on care plans and documentation
It is a tool for everyday practice -not a one-off exercise.
We Want to Hear from You
The guide is designed to support you, your service, and your people -but its impact grows when it is shared.
If you use it, adapt it, or see positive change because of it, please share your success stories with us. We want to learn from you, celebrate progress, and showcase best practice across the sector.
Thank you for being part of The Outstanding Society and for committing to inclusive, person-centred care. We hope this guide is a useful, meaningful, and practical gift -one that supports safer, more confident communication throughout 2026 and beyond.
Please email info@theoutstandingsociety.co.uk if you would like to know more and/or get involved.