Learning

By ‘standing in the gap’ of America’s fractured racial past that lives on as disparities in employment, education, and health, I’ve gained insight into the system (policies, programs) and person (culture, relationship) barriers. I’m currently completing a Masters in Public Affairs at the Humphrey School with a focus on person-centered, racially equitable organizational development. I’m continually learning from new experiences to develop methods and tools that have real-world applications that answer these and other questions:

• How can white leaders in systems be engaged to have whole-hearted connection to the impact of both historical and present racism in ways that create space for new actions?
• How can human resources in social services and schools be better equipped to hire, support and promote staff of color into positions of power in organizations?
• How can data sharing across sectors become more harmonious and effective to support families comprehensively and collaboratively?
• How can systems better engage recipients to improve how services are delivered?
• How can we create a measurement system that illuminates whether we are moving the needle on the root challenges that live deep beneath the surface?

There are many existing tools and bodies of work to support the path of trying to change your system from the inside out. Here are resources I’ve found beneficial and recommend any organization utilize to inform their work:

Awake to Woke to Work: Creating a Race Equity culture – Equity in the Center

Pushback happens in pushing race equity work in systems

Northside Achievement Zone: Building Evidence for Success, At Scale – Center for the Study of Social Policy

Anti-Racist Results Based Accountability method – See how leaders are pushing the current state to for racially equitable abundance to emerge