CHAC Multicultural and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusiveness Initiative

Position Statement

At CHAC, we aspire to be a diverse, inclusive, and equitable organization where all employees, clinicians, and clients—inclusive of those whose gender, race, gender identity, ethnicity, national origin, age, sexual orientation, education, disability, veteran status. or other dimension of diversity—feel valued, respected, and included. 

The CHAC Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee is a working group of staff who are exploring initiatives and projects to increase diversity, equity, and inclusion across the institution. The group began in the 2019-2020 academic year and focuses on workplace environment, intergroup interactions, and the development of programs to increase awareness, knowledge, and action.  

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This is part of an overall agency initiative started in 2017 focused on making systematic, coherent, and long-term efforts to attract and retain staff/supervisors/clinicians from differing backgrounds into the organization. This committee arose partially out of efforts from 2017-19 that included several agency-wide diversity awareness didactics as well as staff racial sensitivity workshops and consultation. The work of this effort is now primarily focused on the board, staff, and organization development so that the organization is infused with multicultural awareness and competency. Our end goal is for racial and cultural awareness, equity, and inclusion to become driving forces in everything that we do: our decision-making, business dealings, and communications, internal and external.  

Most recently, our 2019-20 Doctoral Interns all found that cultural humility, cultural responsiveness, and intersectionality are at the beginning developmental stages within our agency and must be prioritized and integrated into all organizational levels including staff, supervisors, board members, and training cohorts. Specifically, recommendations included affinity groups, readings, and self-growth by the leadership team as well as the adoption of helpful conversation models for difficult topics for daily practice across all teams.  

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As committee members, we take these recommendations and other community feedback seriously and we are committed to providing a framework for ongoing education, training, and programming that celebrates the humanity and irrepressible creativity in Black, Indigenous, and communities of color, including bi-racial communities, spotlighting the inequitable experiences facing BIPOC individuals during the worldwide pandemic, and facilitating the development of diversity equity-mindedness and racial consciousness.  

What We Started IN 2017-2020

(Summary of Actions that Created DEI Committee)

  • Executive Director, leadership and supervisors participated in racial sensitivity training 2018-20; 

  • Latine Program agency wide presentations on Intersectionality and Latine Culture;

  • Agency wide presentations and consultation on racial / cultural awareness with Dr. Yvette Flores, 2017-2020;  

  • Since 2018, agency wide didactic presentations on diversity considerations including LGBTQI+, Latine, Asian Pacific Islander Desi American (APIDA), Black and Disabled populations; 

  • Executive Director’s announcement of the initiative to the Executive Committee of the Board, October 2020.  

Current Efforts

  • Working toward creating opportunities for board and staff professional development and training; 

  • Creating support and resources for staff and board via a CHAC DEI webpage;

  • Creating and implementing a structured and grounded restorative process where people can voice experiences of bias;

  • Providing invitation and support for Staff/Board groups related to White consciousness and White Anti-Racism in addition to affinity groups related to various intersectionalities;

  • Write an authentic, self-reflective Indignous Land Acknowledgement with follow-up appropriate actions to cultivate relationships with local Ohlone Tribe members as appropriate. Develop this initiative with authentic resources.

  • Invitation from CHAC FRC to participate in a social media campaign to embrace DEI in community;

  • Regular reporting to our community on our institutional Multicultural/DEI work; 

  • Regular staff pulse surveys regarding current and ongoing DEI environments.

Long-Term Efforts

  • Hire consultant to guide long term organizational development work in this area, such as:

    • Identify and dismantle silos and inequities within our policies, programs, systems, and services; 

    • Explore potential underlying unquestioned assumptions that interfere with inclusivity; 

    • Advocate and encourage board-level thinking about how systemic inequities impact our mission and work and explore creative responses in alignment with our mission; 

    • Practice and encourage transparent communications in all interactions; 

    • Lead with respect, humility, and inclusion. 

  • Create an environment in which all leaders and employees embrace these frameworks and implement them in workplace interactions through everyday practice.

  • Deepen our commitment to a nondiscriminatory approach and to providing equal opportunity for employment, participation, and advancement throughout the agency.