Supporting young people requires more than good intentions. It requires the right tools, the right training, and a delivery model that works for the people delivering it.
When LGBTQ+ young people are four times more likely to attempt suicide than their peers, training in schools cannot be a tick-box exercise.
In partnership with Rainbow Wise, ICT Revolutions has used e-learning technology to help transform vital LGBTQ+ inclusion training into a scalable, accessible platform, designed to help schools, local authorities and youth organisations become safer, more confident allies to the young people they work alongside.
From one school’s challenge to a national need
Rainbow Wise is a training programme designed to help schools and professionals who work with young people become better allies to LGBTQ+ children and teenagers.
It’s built on a simple, urgent truth: if a young person has one supportive adult in their life, they are 40% less likely to attempt suicide.
This training exists because supportive adults save lives.
But the way training is delivered is what decides whether it actually reaches the people who need it most.
You can have the best content in the world, and it still won’t change anything if it’s inaccessible, impractical, or designed for an ideal world that doesn’t exist.
Rainbow Wise didn’t start as a digital product.
The team behind it had been delivering LGBTQ+ inclusion training for years in corporate and public sector settings, including the NHS, HS2 and higher education institutions. They were used to running live workshops, in-person sessions and webinars.
Then, a school working towards the Rainbow Flag Award approached them. They needed high-quality LGBTQ+ inclusion training that every member of staff could access, not just a few people on an INSET day.
That included:
- Senior leadership teams
- Teaching staff
- Teaching assistants
- Pastoral team
- Admin and office staff
- Lunchtime supervisors
- Governors
- Anyone who might come into contact with pupils
It quickly became obvious that traditional one-off sessions weren’t going to be enough.
Teachers and school staff are already under enormous time pressure. Asking everyone to attend a fixed one-hour webinar or training day simply isn’t realistic. And even when people do attend, six months later, the details can feel fuzzy, just when they need the information most.
What schools needed instead was:
- Training that could be accessed anytime, from anywhere
- Bite-sized sections that staff could revisit when specific issues arose
- Clear, up-to-date guidance on language, law, safeguarding and best practice
- A way to evidence training and impact for frameworks like Ofsted
That’s where the collaboration with ICT Revolutions began.
Human-centred delivery starts with one question: who needs this?
The simple answer here is: everyone. Every adult who might come into contact with a student needs to understand:
- the language to use (and avoid)
- how to recognise homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying
- how to respond when a student comes out
- what the current legal framework is
- how to stop harm without causing more harm through silence or uncertainty
Because LGBTQ+ young people don’t only interact with ‘trained’ adults. They interact with whoever is in front of them in the moment.
And the statistics show what happens when adults aren’t equipped.
- 9.2% of high school-age students report identifying as a gender other than the sex they were assigned at birth: that’s roughly one student in every classroom.
- 45% of LGBTQ+ pupils are bullied in school.
- 64% of trans students are bullied in school.
- 1 in 10 trans pupils are subjected to death threats in school.
- Only 29% of bullied LGBTQ+ students say teachers respond when bullying happens in front of them.
- 68% of LGBTQ+ students say teachers sometimes or never challenge homophobic, biphobic or transphobic language when they hear it.
This is mostly due to uncertainty, avoidance, and not knowing what to do.
Which is exactly why the right training has to reach the right people.
Blending IT know-how with human reality
“That’s the whole ‘why’ in a nutshell,” G, one of the founders of Rainbow Wise, explains. “Rainbow Wise exists so that any adult working with children and young people can become that supportive adult.”
ICT Revolutions is known for delivering complex work into the public sector: the kind where accuracy matters, systems matter, access matters, and real people are impacted when things go wrong.
They understand that a system only works if it works for humans.
G already had a working relationship with ICT Revolutions, and a chance conversation led to the beginnings of something bigger.
“ICT Revolutions already had the e-learning expertise, the tech, and the experience of delivering training into public sector settings,” G explains. “We had the lived experience, the content, and the understanding of what LGBTQ+ young people need. Bringing those together just made sense.”
The Rainbow Wise content was carefully adapted into an e-learning platform that:
- Works across devices (laptop, tablet, phone)
- Offers written, audio and video formats
- Includes interactive elements to help embed learning
- Can be used as a course or as a reference library that staff can jump into when needed
On the school side, ICT Revolutions helped build a robust administrative layer so:
- Schools can create their own staff accounts and manage licenses
- Monitor logins, progress and completion
- Download reports for inspections and audits
This matters because, under the current Ofsted Education Inspection Framework, inspectors consider how schools prevent and respond to bullying and discriminatory behaviour, including homophobic, biphobic and transphobic incidents. Rainbow Wise gives schools a clear, trackable way to evidence what they’re doing.
When 95% of staff in a school complete the training, the school can also gain the Rainbow Wise Award, a visible marker of their commitment to inclusion and safety for LGBTQ+ young people.
The training is also CPD-accredited, meaning staff can gain CPD hours for completing it.
Helping adults feel less scared, and more capable
Rainbow Wise also addresses a very real emotional barrier: fear.
Right now, trans and gender identities have become a highly politicised topic. For many teachers and professionals, this has created uncertainty and anxiety:
- “What if I say the wrong thing?”
- “What is the legal position on this?”
- “How do I support this student without risking my job?”
There are many staff who desperately want to do the right thing but no longer feel sure what the ‘right’ thing is.
Rainbow Wise tackles this by clearly outlining:
- The current legal framework in which schools are operating
- The difference between supportive practice and discrimination
- Practical, safeguarding-informed responses
It reframes allyship not as perfection, but as willingness to engage, learn and act. When people are afraid of getting it wrong, they often say nothing.
When they have clear guidance, the door opens.
More conversations happen. More adults feel capable. More young people feel protected.
That’s what human-centred training is supposed to do.
Not just educate, but equip.
Accessible, accountable LGBTQ+ training
Rainbow Wise exists in two versions:
For schools
- Annual licence
- Admin dashboard
- Engagement and completion tracking
- Ofsted-ready reporting
- Rainbow Wise Award at 95% staff completion
For professionals working with young people
- Youth workers, scout leaders, music teachers, driving instructors, carers, after-school clubs and more
- Available to bulk purchase for teams that aren’t school-based, e.g. care agency
- Individual access for 12 months
- Dip in and out whenever needed
ICT Revolutions is proud to have partnered with G and their team to help turn their mission into a robust, accessible, and scalable e-learning platform for schools and professionals who work with young people.
A partnership rooted in care, not just code
For ICT Revolutions, Rainbow Wise is a natural extension of work already happening across local authorities and social care, where data, records and systems underpin the safety and well-being of children and young people.
The same care that goes into migrating legacy case management systems, keeping historical records accurate and accessible, supporting frontline staff with practical, usable training, now also supports LGBTQ+ inclusion and safeguarding through Rainbow Wise.
As G says: “ICT Revolutions is different. Every single person I’ve met there really cares. There’s no one just coasting through. That shows up in how this platform works and how it’s being supported.”
Together, Rainbow Wise and ICT Revolutions have created something that is:
- Human-centred
- Evidence-based
- Technically robust
- Practical for real-world settings
Most importantly, it helps adults show up better for the young people in their care.
How to get involved in LGBTQ+ training for schools
Rainbow Wise is already live, with schools actively using the platform, and staff actively completing the training. Future versions are planned, including one for parents.
For now, the focus is clear: Equipping adults who work with children and young people to be informed, confident and supportive allies to LGBTQ+ young people.
If you’re a school, local authority or organisation working with young people and would like to explore Rainbow Wise, you can find out more here: Rainbow Wise Info
One supportive adult can change, and even save, a young person’s life.
Rainbow Wise exists to make sure that more of those adults have what they need.