As a human services institution, JEVS is known for providing vocational and occupational services to marginalized groups e.g. disabled, immigrants, addicted, mentally ill, returning citizens, homeless, and poor or underemployed.
Front-line staff and direct service providers at JEVS are primarily urban persons of color, and suburban whites.
Daily staff interactions are fertile grounds for the expression of implicit biases between staff and clients.
JEVS staff recommended implicit bias training along with microaggression training for managers and volunteer staff.
Strategies:
Conduct three-hour workshops over Zoom on implicit bias and microaggressions. Managers, leadership and staff were invited to attend one of two sessions.
All staff who attended the workshops had to complete the Implicit Attitudes Test as a prerequisite for entrance into the training.
Two sessions were for managers and two were for non-management staff.
Actions:
Over a three week period, six training workshops were conducted by EMC. The groups were limited to 15 staff per group. Each group had a team of EMC facilitators (one white and one person of color). The workshops were three hours in length.
Outcomes:
There were several themes that emerged in the trainings
Color Blindness Thinking
Several people revealed strong beliefs in color blindness thinking, which essentially is when someone white says to someone of color, “I don’t see color in you.”
Several African-Americans shared what is offensive about color blindness thinking with whites.
A group discussion led to a deeper understanding of the white speaker’s intent, which was an attempt to express, “I accept you because you are like me.” While the intent may have been to connect, the impact was a superficial compliment, at best; while, at worst, it was a more harmful veiled insult, which insinuated “you are different from those Blacks who start trouble.”
Backlash Against the Black Lives Matter Movement
The second theme that emerged was a covert backlash against the Black Lives Matter movement. Several staff members revealed that one of the more vocal leaders in the “C” suite had announced that he supports “Blue Lives Matter.”
Another staff member reported seeing a confederate flag displayed in an employee’s office.
While still others revealed that some staff had their Black sons beaten up by Philadelphia Police, with several individuals crying during the session.
JEVS tolerates covert racist messages in the workplace.
Microaggressions
Several individuals volunteered to discuss the microaggressions that they’ve personally experienced at work.
Many participants felt that the training was very valuable in improving the openness between staff members.
Human Resources (HR) appointed a Diversity Council to work on DEI for JEVS. Currently, their role is to influence and advise HR. Other than sharing the results from the diversity assessment and Implicit Bias Training, there is no direct or indirect reporting back to leadership except through the Chief Human Resources Officer. Moreover, this initiative may not have been brought before the Board of Directors. As a consequence, buy-in from organizational leadership is ambivalent and marginal at best. JEVS’ current diversity initiative seems to be fragmented and reactive rather than proactive. Without a coherent strategy, the organization’s approach to DEI is what we call “Patchwork Diversity”
As a human services institution, JEVS is known for providing vocational and occupational services to marginalized groups e.g. disabled, immigrants, addicted, mentally ill, returning citizens, homeless, and poor or underemployed.
Front-line staff and direct service providers at JEVS are primarily urban persons of color, and suburban whites.
Daily staff interactions are fertile grounds for the expression of implicit biases between staff and clients.
JEVS staff recommended implicit bias training along with microaggression training for managers and volunteer staff.
Conduct three-hour workshops over Zoom on implicit bias and microaggressions. Managers, leadership and staff were invited to attend one of two sessions.
All staff who attended the workshops had to complete the Implicit Attitudes Test as a prerequisite for entrance into the training.
Two sessions were for managers and two were for non-management staff.
Over a three week period, six training workshops were conducted by EMC. The groups were limited to 15 staff per group. Each group had a team of EMC facilitators (one white and one person of color). The workshops were three hours in length.
There were several themes that emerged in the trainings
Color Blindness Thinking
Several people revealed strong beliefs in color blindness thinking, which essentially is when someone white says to someone of color, “I don’t see color in you.”
Several African-Americans shared what is offensive about color blindness thinking with whites.
A group discussion led to a deeper understanding of the white speaker’s intent, which was an attempt to express, “I accept you because you are like me.” While the intent may have been to connect, the impact was a superficial compliment, at best; while, at worst, it was a more harmful veiled insult, which insinuated “you are different from those Blacks who start trouble.”
Backlash Against the Black Lives Matter Movement
The second theme that emerged was a covert backlash against the Black Lives Matter movement. Several staff members revealed that one of the more vocal leaders in the “C” suite had announced that he supports “Blue Lives Matter.”
Another staff member reported seeing a confederate flag displayed in an employee’s office.
While still others revealed that some staff had their Black sons beaten up by Philadelphia Police, with several individuals crying during the session.
JEVS tolerates covert racist messages in the workplace.
Microaggressions
Several individuals volunteered to discuss the microaggressions that they’ve personally experienced at work.
Many participants felt that the training was very valuable in improving the openness between staff members.
Human Resources (HR) appointed a Diversity Council to work on DEI for JEVS. Currently, their role is to influence and advise HR. Other than sharing the results from the diversity assessment and Implicit Bias Training, there is no direct or indirect reporting back to leadership except through the Chief Human Resources Officer. Moreover, this initiative may not have been brought before the Board of Directors. As a consequence, buy-in from organizational leadership is ambivalent and marginal at best. JEVS’ current diversity initiative seems to be fragmented and reactive rather than proactive. Without a coherent strategy, the organization’s approach to DEI is what we call “Patchwork Diversity”
