Back-Up

Who we are

For nearly 40 years, we’ve worked alongside people and families to rebuild confidence and independence after spinal cord injury — providing award-winning services that challenge perceptions and open up new possibilities.

Today, we’re leading the way in helping people adjust positively to life after a spinal cord injury. Our services are delivered by people who’ve been there, who understand the journey, and know how to support others.

Whether it’s building practical skills through our wheelchair skills training, boosting confidence on our life-changing courses, or supporting families through challenging times — we’re here for everyone affected by spinal cord injury.

Our culture and values

Our Values and Behaviours

We embrace challenge

Challenge is central to our learning and growth; it helps us gain knowledge and skills. By fi nding ways to overcome challenge and move forward we gain a sense of achievement, supporting us to realise our full potential. 

We have fun

We believe that having fun allows us to connect with others, whilst opening up opportunities to develop, achieve and get the most out of life, showing that there is a positive future after spinal cord injury. 

We build inclusive communities

We achieve more for people aff ected by spinal cord injury when we work together. We are collaborative and inclusive in our approach. We embrace diversity, working with and supporting individuals, groups, and the wider spinal cord injury community, bringing people together.

We are ambitious for each other

We are passionate about our work. Always driven by the needs of people aff ected by spinal cord injury. We listen to what people want, provide innovative responses and learn quickly. We encourage each other to give our best.

Equality, diversity and inclusion policy

At Back Up, we are committed to creating a culture that is diverse and inclusive. We want Back Up to be a place where everyone feels welcome.

Embracing equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI)

One of our core values is to build inclusive communities. We want to ensure our everyday work practices and individual behaviours enable us to have a workforce and volunteer base which is reflective of the population that we serve.

Lived experience is central to our approach. The majority of our services team have lived experience of spinal cord injury and we are led by people affected by spinal cord injury. The majority of our board of trustees either have a spinal cord injury or have a family member with a spinal cord injury.

We have an Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Policy and a Diversity and Inclusion group that drives forward initiatives to remove barriers to people engaging with Back Up.

Most importantly we are taking action.

Creating a diverse and inclusive culture at Back Up

• We have committed to ensuring that we tell the stories of a diverse range of experiences

• We have reviewed our recruitment practices to remove barriers and encourage applications from underrepresented groups

• We ask our team every year what more we can do to make them feel included and crucially act on feedback

• We are targetting outreach to groups that we know are under-represented

• We use translation services to support people who do not have English as a first language

• We commit to being a Disability Confident Employer, helping to positively change attitudes, behaviours and cultures towards the employment of disabled people.

• We recognise that individuals’ experiences differ. We are committed to listening to our staff team, volunteers and people who use our services about what matters to them

Although we have made some positive changes, we know there is still a lot more work to do.