Good Shepherd Rehabilitation’s Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Committee is employee-led and guides our organization’s overall DEI efforts through a mission of increasing awareness, promoting understanding, building capacity for dialogue and acting to support and encourage inclusivity and to embrace diversity.
The DEI Committee reiterates Good Shepherd’s collective commitment to fairness, inclusion and equity, both in health care and the broader society. Made up of employees from clinical and non-clinical positions, the committee is a critical driver in fostering organizational change and establishing a dedicated focus on diversity and inclusion priorities.
The committee focuses on a number of strategic directions and actions designed to achieve its purpose within the Good Shepherd community. Some of these strategic directions include:
- Promoting the use and study of survey results, which capture the collective experience of employees, particularly when the DEI team is considering and designing its approach to diversity programs and activities
- Focusing on self (and group) learning and study, so the committee and those involved can learn more about diversity, how to understand the perspectives of others in subordinate groups and how to more successfully dialogue in an open, challenging and supportive environment.
- Providing honest and motivating communications to the Good Shepherd community and inviting open dialogue about the topic of diversity.
- Enlarging group participation and expanding ways of learning by sponsoring cultural understanding through cultural events, which help promote social interaction with groups that are less familiar to or less understood by the community as a whole.
- Advocating to change practices and policies to help increase inclusivity and allow access to more resources to embrace diversity.
The DEI Committee has focused on four content areas:
- Race/ethnicity
- Disability
- LGBTQIA+
- Language
The committee established sub-groups aligned with these four content areas to ensure consistent progress and attentiveness to all efforts and plans of action.