How to Prepare Your Team for Equity Professional Development
It’s back to school season! A new academic year brings fresh opportunities, challenges, and… professional development.
As organizations work to create more equitable and inclusive environments, conflict avoidance is one of the most common barriers to progress. Change can feel uncomfortable. Help prepare your team to lean into conversations that might feel challenging by grounding them in the greater importance of this work.
Explain how a deeper commitment to equity is mission-critical. In order to foster mindset and behavior changes among individuals on your team, it should be clear to everyone why diversity, equity and inclusion are integral to your specific work.
This message is most impactful when it comes from and/or is reinforced by top leadership.
Prompt: How is your work impacted by issues related to diversity, equity, and inclusion?
Example: In order to provide high-quality education to students, we need to be continually grappling with and addressing our role within the broader systems of inequality that shape their lives. We can’t achieve the impact we want for our students and families unless we are committed to the lifelong effort of developing our own cultural competency.
For a full list of recommendations & toolkit about preparing teams to lean into challenging conversations, sign up for a Diversity Talks Spark membership!
Is your organization or institution ready to have honest conversations and reflection to challenge oppression this school year? Diversity Talks provides youth-led professional development and holistic assessments that equip you to further the cultural competence of your educational community. Learn more about what we do.
