Hospice Waterloo Region (HWR) is proud to announce a new and ongoing Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) initiative.
While HWR has always strived to be a welcoming and respectful place, we also know that this work needs to be done on a continuous, ongoing basis over time and with intention. Research clearly shows that organizations with strong EDI have better retention of staff, recruit more diverse talent, have increased feelings of safety inside the workplace and better morale.
At the highest level, the Board of Directors and Executive Director have baked aspects of EDI into most of the 2023-2026 Strategic Plan for Hospice Waterloo Region. On an operational level, in order to put this strategy into action, we have created an EDI Committee.
Pictured L to R: Monica Wood, Caitlin Agla, Kayla Haas, Alexandra Allen, Donna Lawrence
Alex Allen, our Community Relations Manager, is leading the committee. The other members of our committee are Caitlin Agla, Director of Culture and Client Services, Kayla Haas, Client Services Coordinator, Donna Lawrence, Palliative Pain and Symptom Management Nurse Consultant, and Monica Wood, Palliative Care Navigator. We are a small and extremely passionate group!
When the EDI committee first met – it felt like a herculean task – how do we start? Where do we start? What should be our priorities? Naturally, we started with research. Alex consulted four main sources to start building our EDI proposal (sources listed at the end of the article). One of the key themes around building an EDI initiative that emerged was from the “50-30 Challenge” boiled down into three main steps.
- Learn and Reflect
- Start the Conversation
- Making a Difference
These steps and this flow really resonated with us. We built a three-year plan with these steps in mind.
YEAR ONE (2024): Learn and Reflect
We want to focus on staff education, learning and reflection. For example, this year all staff will be required to complete the Indigenous Cultural Safety Training that is offered online by Virtual Hospice. This course links Indigenous Cultural Safety to the work we do at hospice and in hospice palliative care in general. We also want to revisit Positive Space training that we have required of all volunteers and staff for over five years, and ensure it continues to meet our learning goals.
YEAR TWO (2025): Start the Conversation
We want to spend a significant amount of time reaching out to diverse cultural groups and start to understand how we can better support their end-of-life, caregiving and bereavement needs. We want to ask questions like “What do I need to know about you and your culture that can help me provide you and your family with the best care possible?” We will never be experts on every single cultural group. But we can strive to ask the right questions and learn from the answers.
YEAR THREE (2026): Making a Difference
Now that our staff have a better education base and we have learned from different groups on support that would be helpful, we can start looking at designing and delivering specific support programs to meet the needs of diverse cultural communities, as well as diverse individuals inside our Cook Family Residence. We can also provide training or resources to groups where that would be a more appropriate response to their needs.
As you can see, we have lots of work to do! Our team and staff are excited to do this work. We believe that it is worth it. Taking on an EDI initiative takes a certain level of bravery – we might not get this all right. We might make mistakes. In the end though, we believe that it is worth trying to do better and be better. We plan to learn from our mistakes and grow.
We plan to keep the public updated on our plans and activities. Please follow us on social media or bookmark our blog page.
Thank you for your support as we grow on this journey,
Alex, Caitlin, Kayla, Donna, and Monica
Resources
- “How to create an Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Plan” From Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions
- “Beyond Diversity: An LGBT Best Practice Guide for Employers” (2017) from Pride at Work Canada, the leading national not-for-profit confronting LGBT inclusion in Canadian workplaces
- From the “50-30 Challenge: Your Diversity Advantage” An initiative by the Government of Canada to challenge Canadian organizations to increase the representation and inclusion of diverse groups within their workplaces, while highlighting the benefits of giving all Canadians a seat at the table
- “Indigenous Cultural Safety Training” by Canadian Virtual Hospice