The fifth year of the Equity & Inclusion Cohorts supported 58 people representing 20 organizations.
AWARENESS RAISING
Participants:
City of Hillsboro
Clean Water Services
Friends of Tualatin River National Wildlife Refuge
Mount St. Helens Institute
Northwest Outdoor Science School
The Nature Conservancy
Tualatin Hills Park & Recreation District
Tualatin Soil and Water Conservation District
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
Facilitated by DRC Learning Solutions' Derron Coles and Alexis Millett
The Awareness Raising Cohort is for people interested in making significant contributions to DEIJ in their personal and professional lives but who need to learn the vocabulary, history, and best practices to do so.
All training topics and activities focused on helping cohort members develop a meaningful and science-based understanding of the fundamentals of DEIJ, emphasizing anti-racist theory and actions. The depth to which we covered individual topics were driven by cohort needs but included:
- Historical context of systemic inequities
- Intersectionality and the dynamics of power and privilege in society
- Culture and its impacts on thought and behavior
- Barriers to cultural competency development and mitigation strategies (e.g. mindfulness)
- Neuroscience of bias and strategies for interrupting bias (our own and others)
We strived to establish an inclusive, shame-free environment to engage cohort members through relationship building and self-reflection exercises that build cultural self-awareness and competency while diminishing fears of intercultural communication that can prevent post-training development. Training was coupled with “deep dive” assignments intended to maintain momentum.
CHANGE AGENT
Participants:
Confluence Environmental Center
Friends of Tualatin River National Wildlife Refuge
Mosaic Ecology
Mount St. Helens Institute
Portland Parks & Recreation
Portland Water Bureau
The Intertwine Alliance
The Nature Conservancy
Tualatin Soil and Water Conservation District
Facilitated by DRC Learning Solutions' Derron Coles and Alexis Millett
The Change Agent Cohort focuses on training topics and activities that advance our language, skill sets and strategies for pushing through personal, organizational and systemic barriers to achieving more inclusive teams, organizations and coalitions. In this cohort, participants developed their vision for change, approach to change agency, and strategies for building and maintaining coalitions. They learned about and practice essential skills like reframing strategies, fostering mindsets that drive change, and systems analysis methods to more confidently and effectively lead organizational change efforts.
Prerequisites: Prior awareness training or self-study on fundamentals of diversity, equity and inclusion. Understanding of key terms, concepts and justifications for DEI initiatives at the individual, organizational and societal levels.
INTERGOVERNMENTAL CHANGE AGENT
*NEW THIS YEAR!*
Participants:
Clean Water Services
Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife
Facilitated by DRC Learning Solutions' Derron Coles and Alexis Millett
This year we launched an Intergovernmental Change Agent Cohort in response to feedback from previous public sector participants who felt they would benefit from grappling with systemic change in the unique context of public service. Also influencing this addition, in 2021 the Oregon Legislature passed SCR 17 requiring state agencies to apply an environmental justice lens to their work; this cohort supports fulfilling that mandate. It provides tools for public agencies to become more effective at sponsoring equitable policies, a critical component in our systems-change approach.
The curriculum is designed for the change agent stage of development. The cohort focuses on training topics and activities that advance our language, skill sets and strategies for pushing through personal, organizational and systemic barriers to achieving more inclusive teams, organizations and coalitions. In this cohort, participants develop their vision for change, approach to change agency, and strategies for building and maintaining coalitions. They learn about and practice essential skills like reframing strategies, fostering mindsets that drive change, and systems analysis methods to more confidently and effectively lead organizational change efforts.
Prerequisites: Prior awareness training or self-study on fundamentals of diversity, equity and inclusion. Understanding of key terms, concepts and justifications for DEI initiatives at the individual, organizational and societal levels.
IMPLEMENTATION PEER GROUP
Facilitated by Capacity Building Partnerships' Sara Curiel Paez and Alexis Millett
The Implementation Peer Group focuses on supporting leaders through barriers in integrating DEIJ into organizational culture, policies, practices and programming. This model of a cohort is not a training. Instead, it is an opportunity for directed, intentional dialogue with peers and consultants. As a community of peers, time is devoted in each meeting to exploration of specific leadership dilemmas brought forth from the participants. A leadership dilemma involves a challenge you are experiencing or anticipating. Themes of these dilemmas may come about due to competing priorities in your organization; personal blind spots; team, management or leadership dynamics; resistance from key stakeholders; personal challenges moving this work forward; and many other barriers to implementation. This is an opportunity to learn together and from one another as we address challenges in the work.
Prerequisite: Individuals participating should have a developed analysis of how power, privilege and culture shows up in society and behavior. Organizations should be committed to and working on advancing DEIJ through their missions. For most organizations this commitment will look like the prerequisites listed below:
- Your organization has an active equity initiative and/or goals being implemented.
- You have buy-in and support from leadership.
- Your organization contains multiple people who have dedicated work time to advancing DEIJ.
- You have taken risk within DEIJ or are willing to do things differently.
- Your organization is committed to being anti-racist.
"Participating in the Intertwine Alliance's Implementation Peer Group was a truly great experience for me personally and as the lead of equity-based programs within the Forest Park Conservancy. The chance to work with a smaller recurring group of peers who are dealing with similar issues and challenges within their organizations made all the difference. Having that familiarity and short-hand with the participants facilitated some difficult and uncomfortable conversations. Furthermore, the leadership dilemma proved to be a truly effective approach. From sharing actual, real-life situations, to practice active listening, the sessions provided real insight and ideas on how to work on some of the DEI challenges our organization is facing."
-Alejando Orizola, Forest Park Conservancy, Conservation Director
"Participating in the Intertwine implementation peer group cohorts has been super helpful as we started to implement our Racial Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Action Plan. Operationalizing racial equity is not easy and requires work to help identify and talk through the challenges that come up when transforming an organization to support all people. One of the ways we utilized this experience was in the development of our Equity & Racial Justice Program Manager position. Using the Leadership Dilemma framework, we were able to collaborate with the cohort to identify and confirm key priorities for this position to help us take that next step as a department in implementation. We know we aren’t alone in figuring this out, and we’re grateful for the opportunity to build community with those organizations as we go through this together."
-Gaylen Beatty, Metro Parks and Nature, Special Projects Manager
BIPOC LEADERSHIP PEER GROUP
*NEW THIS YEAR!*
Organizations represented:
Confluence Environmental Center
Friends of the Columbia Gorge
Metro Parks & Nature
Portland Parks & Recreation
The Blueprint Foundation
The Intertwine Alliance
Tualatin River National Wildlife Refuge
Tualatin Soil and Water Conservation District
Willamette Partnership
Facilitated by Capacity Building Partnerships' Sara Curiel Paez and Guadalupe Guajardo
This year we launched a new BIPOC Leadership Peer Group focused on supporting, healing and empowering BIPOC leaders. This cohort is a BIPOC affinity space to create a safer growing environment in the context of the predominantly white environmental movement and its racist origins in the Pacific Northwest. As the sector strives to challenge traditional ways of operating to advance racial equity, the work can require a lot of unpacking and processing of white-inflicted trauma and oppression. BIPOC staff members, leaders, volunteers and/or board members can sometimes benefit from a new set of skills and support in order to advance leadership. The BIPOC Leadership Peer Group is one way we can create supportive and safer spaces for processing and leadership skill development in this environmental coalition.
Leadership is one of life’s necessities. Whether we are aware of it, we are leading all the time in our relationships, work, places of worship and civic organizations. We have developed our styles of leadership from what we have seen modeled around us, starting with our family of origin, first organizations, chosen mentors, and all the experiences since. As we’ve intentionally and implicitly accumulated different styles, it is important to examine how we show up as leaders in the moment and if there are practices that better serve us. Over this 8-month cohort, we covered the following aspects of leadership: Demystifying the concept of leadership, discovering ways leadership can be enjoyed, how to lead oneself and others, how to honor different cultural styles, and how to be an effective leader in modern-day cases and challenges.
This cohort model is not a training. Instead, the peer group provides the opportunity to gain skills through a community of learning. We used a leadership case framework in which the group helps think through participants' dilemmas and shares insights in how to ground your actions in integrity and lead with conviction. Leadership cases can look different for everyone. They can be about a specific example from work, like how to balance staff’s needs when they are at odds with the organization’s values while setting boundaries to protect your mental health. Or a leadership case can be about understanding your leadership style and putting a process in place to strengthen how to lead more effectively. The leadership cases are designed to meet every leader where they are at in their growth.