Past Training: FCSS Phase 3: Strengthening Inclusive Agencies

Course Description

Continuing to support FCSS-funded organizations with their Diversity and Inclusion capacity-building strategies, the Centre for Race and Culture, Multicultural Health Brokers Co-op, and Creating Hope Society have partnered. This collaboration helped the organizations advance the adoption and promotion of diversity and inclusion principles.

The project plan progressed through the following steps and series of activities:

1. Organizational Assessment for Diversity and Inclusion Workshop

This interactive workshop reviewed the general concepts around diversity and inclusion (D&I) and provided examples of inclusive practices. Then we gave an orientation to the assessment tool. This tool presents a framework for understanding and assessing inclusion from a holistic standpoint, with a design to help organizations better meet the needs of diverse communities. The facilitators helped the participants work through questions to understand how the assessment identifies areas as target areas. This workshop is an opportunity for organizations to network and continue building their collective capacity to discuss and learn about D&I.

Note: We ask organizations to identify 2-4 individuals from their organization who can take the lead in conducting a self-assessment during and after the workshop.

2. Priority Identification

After completing their self-assessments, we ask organizations to identify their top two to three opportunities for the next step in developing their organizational D&I capacity. These are directly from the indicators on the self-assessment and the organization’s assessment of their areas of readiness. We then send complete assessments back to the project team to inform the next stage of activities.

3. Community of Practice Working Groups

In this stage, the project team partners organized working groups to bring together groups of agencies to achieve a common goal. These groups brought together organizations with shared priorities for D&I development into communities of practice, who met four times to work together towards completing an outcome over the remaining span of the project. We anticipated the creation of five working groups, organized into communities of practice with shared concerns such as:

• A working group for organizations identifying a priority area within the governance realm, such as policy development or board development.
• A working group for organizations that identify a priority area within the external realm related to connecting with communities and diverse groups, such as partnering with community organizations or understanding the needs of diverse individuals.
• A working group for organizations identifying a priority area within the external realm related to service delivery, such as program design or evaluation.
• A working group for organizations who identify a priority area within the operations realm related to staffing, such as hiring, promotion, and retention.
• A working group for organizations identifying a priority area within the operations realm related to communications, such as outreach and reporting.
• We supported each working group to develop an outcome relevant to their identified priority area, and that makes use of techniques that best suit that outcome.

4. Final resource sharing/ongoing Communities of Practice

At the close of the project, organizations joined a final sharing event that provided participants with compiled resources from all working groups across the project’s various working groups. This event allowed participants to access resources that may be of use to them in their next steps and reconnect participants to the wider network of agencies so that ongoing Communities of Practice can be formed and supported.