The University of Derby’s Race Equality Network is proud to celebrate and honour Black History Month with colleagues and students across the university and within the wider community.
We are excited to announce that we will be hosting a lecture featuring two local Black women who have made immense contributions to health, social care and academia in the United Kingdom and beyond.
‘In Conversation with Professor Laura Serrant, OBE, Assistant Profesor Cath Williams and the Chair of the Race Equality Network – Catherine Jon-Baptiste’ will provide a personal and professional account of their journey to the upper reaches of their respected professions.
Laura Serrant will also be promoting her new book ‘Stories from my Mother’s House’ and signed copies will be available to purchase at the lecture.
Refreshments are served from 6 pm with the lecture starting at 6:30 pm.
Speaker details
Professor Laura Serrant OBE (PhD)
Professor Laura Serrant OBE is a multi-award winning global diversity and inclusion specialist with over 35 years’ of experience in leadership, policy development and education. She has her own coaching, speaking and consultancy business, Laura Serrant Limited. She was listed as the 8th most influential Black person in Britain by Powerful Media UK. In 2018, she was awarded an OBE for services to nursing and health policy.
Professor Serrant has extensive experience in national and international personal and professional leadership development with particular specialist input on racial and ethnic inequalities and enacting social justice in practice. Professor Serrant has published in excess of 100 articles. Her research interests relate to community and public health, specifically health disparities and the needs of marginalised and ‘seldom heard’ communities. She developed and published a framework for conducting research, policy and improvements in this area of work ‘The Silences Framework’ (Serrant-Green, 2010) which has been used to guide policy and organisational practice by government agencies, education, health and care sector providers in the UK and overseas.
She is one of the 2017 BBC Expert women, Previous Chair of the Chief Nursing Officer for England’s BME Strategic Advisory group and a 2017 Florence Nightingale Scholar. She is an ambassador of the Mary Seacole Memorial Statue and the Equality Challenge Unit Race Equality Charter for Higher Education. Her work has been recognised with numerous awards and prizes, including Queens Nurse status and Fellowship of the Queens Nursing Institute to those who have shown leadership in community nursing.
In 2014, she was named as one of the top 50 leaders in the UK by The Health services Journal in three separate categories: Inspirational Women in healthcare, BME Pioneers and Clinical Leader awards. She has a successful podcast series, ‘Speaking for Ourselves’ available across most social media platforms.