At the onset, the goal with the Equity Learning Lab was to accelerate the uptake of practices, processes, and policies that advance equity, diversity, and inclusion within internal organizational functioning and external mission-focused work. We recognized then - and continue to humble ourselves today - that there remains much to learn and understand about equity and D&I, both within the scope of our mission and services at KHI and within our individual responsibilities as contributors to the workplace culture. Thank you to everyone for your thoughtfulness and engagement this year as we’ve taken steps to work through our unique self-assessment and priority setting process. Here are a few updates from that process.
Themes from KHI’s organizational equity reflection sessions in April were incorporated into the Equity Continuum Plan (ECP), which is our formal, organization-wide equity plan. You will recall we received an initial draft from the Core team in May, which was our opportunity to help shape the plan by providing feedback on the KHI-centered goals that drive our activities. We also received helpful feedback on our EPC from leaders at the Learning for Action (LFA) and Public Equity Group (PEG), partners of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF).
In the ELL section on Teams, the EPC can be viewed as a continuous draft that includes comments from the external reviewers, and we've also provided a direct link to the plan without those comments if you’re interested in reviewing the latest as of today, August 5. There will be opportunities to review this plan together during staff meetings, and we hope you will submit questions and comments on an ongoing basis.
The EPC activities and key deliverables we’ve established are to support the following two goals:
Conduct a thorough, equity-focused review of KHI human resources and related policies and update policies to foster a culture of diversity, equity andinclusion. (Organizational Development)
Operationalize organization-wide commitment to equity and community engagement as fundamental practices in projects and activities. (Strategy)
Work has begun in addressing both goals. One is a project to collect KHI internal policies that will be part of the review process and a resulting technical report with recommendations. The other project or set of activities involves multiple points of internal and external engagement to build the competencies needed to achieve our goals. We will soon be announcing a new series of conversations on equity, and hopefully these sessions can be held in person! These activities in the EPC are part of a broader strategy to be an effective supporter of the difficult conversations needed to meaningfully address race and racism as a health issue in Kansas. The challenges before us will require an adaptive approach to the activities in our EPC and in our work with partners. Thank you for continuing to provide your perspectives and input.
ELL Core Team Kari, Linda, Tatiana, Hina, Phillip and Miranda
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