Our Equity Work
Mission
Our Mission and Action Steps
At The Family Development Center, we are dedicated to providing compassionate mental health care across the lifespan that evolves with the diverse needs of our communities. We recognize that healing is deeply personal and influenced by culture, history, and systemic factors.
As an agency, we celebrate our employees' and clients' identities and lived experiences and work towards creating a space where they feel seen, heard, and empowered. Our clinic is committed to decolonizing mental health* education, dismantling barriers to care, promoting accountability and repair, and fostering a more just, inclusive, and equitable system through the following actions.
Action Steps:
Through our teaching clinic, we recruit, train, and retain therapists of color and culturally responsive white therapists
We offer flexible payment options, such as sliding scale fees, payment plans, and the acceptance of Medicaid, Medicare, and most insurance carriers.
We prioritize and emphasize our racial equity work through Affinity group participation;
Creating equitable policies through our equity and policy committee.
Continued learning through outside consultants and training to increase and improve our knowledge and awareness of the impact these experiences have on our lives and wellness.
Participation in the field of perinatal mental health (specialization surrounding parenting, infertility, miscarriage and infant loss) using an anti-racist lens.
*DECOLONIZING MENTAL HEALTH dismantles the racism, colonialism and Euro-centric assumptions, biases, and practices that underscores the mental healthcare industry. It invites us into deeper interrogation surrounding the basic assumptions of mental health care, such as, the DSM-V, theory, and interventions.
Commitment to Courageous Conversations on Race
Definitions from which we can all work:
RACE: A socially constructed characterization of individuals based on skin color, culture, etc.
RACISM: Racism is different from racial prejudice, hatred, or discrimination. Racism involves one group having the power to carry out systematic discrimination through the institutional policies and practices of the society and by shaping the cultural beliefs and values that support those racist policies and practices.
PREJUDICE: An attitude based on limited information, often on stereotypes. Prejudice is usually, but not always, negative. Positive and negative prejudices alike, especially when directed toward oppressed people, are damaging because they deny the individuality of the person. In some cases, the prejudices of oppressed people (“you can’t trust the police”) are necessary for survival. No one is free of prejudice.
PRIVILEGE, SOCIAL and INSTITUTIONAL POWER:
access to resources
the ability to influence others
access to decision-makers to get what you want done
the ability to define reality for yourself and others
a right or advantage that is given to some people and not others.
“Whiteness”: The component of each and every one of ourselves that expects assimilation to the dominant culture.
The Four Agreements
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Stay engaged
Staying engaged means “remaining morally, emotionally, intellectually, and socially involved in the dialogue”.
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Experience discomfort
This norm acknowledges that discomfort is inevitable, especially in dialogue about race, and that participants make a commitment to bring issues into the open. It is not talking about these issues that create divisiveness. The divisiveness already exists in the society and in our schools. It is through dialogue, even when uncomfortable, that healing and change begin.
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Speak your truth
This means being open about thoughts and feelings and not just saying what you think others want to hear.
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Expect and accept nonclosure
This agreement asks participants to “hang out in uncertainty” and not rush to quick solutions, especially in relation to racial understanding, which requires ongoing dialogue.
In our courageous conversations we will monitor and actively uphold these six components:
1. Focus on personal, local and immediate
2. Isolate race
3. Normalize social construction & multiple perspectives
4. Monitor agreements, conditions and establish parameters
5. Use a "working definition" for race
6. Examine the presence and role of "Whiteness"
*Adapted from Glenn E. Singleton & Curtis Linton, Courageous Conversations about Race: A Field Guide for Achieving Equity in Schools. 2006. pp.5865. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.
Our equity consultants
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Dr. Joe Reid, PhD, LMFT
Dr. Reid, is the owner of Relationships, llc, a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) in the state of Minnesota, and a previous adjunct faculty member at North Central University and previous faculty at Argosy University’s Marriage and Family Therapy Program.
Dr. Reid graduated from East Carolina University with his Master's and his doctorate from the University of Minnesota. He practices from an experiential, structural, and solution-focused approach. Dr. Reid believes feminism and cultural responsibility are the roots of change, respectful service, and relationships.
Dr. Reid supports the TFDC Supervisor team through coaching, mentoring, and teaching on cross-cultural supervision.
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Dominique Jones, MA, LMFT
Dominique Jones has worked with our staff in several capacities. Ms. Jones has supported difficult staff conversations, met with affinity groups, and is a central part of our Equity Committee. Dominique guided the Equity Committee in the formation of our goals and objectives.
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Robin DiAngelo, PhD
Dr. DiAngelo and Will O’Berry work with our white affinity group to notice, identify and dismantle the “white moves” that maintain the racist status quo and destroy relational trust and connection. Dr. DiAngelo and Will O’Berry are challenging the deeply held belief by white people that racism is about individual intent. Instead, they are working from the reality that racism is a structural system that institutionalizes inequity and violence. Dr. DiAngelo and Will are inviting the white affinity group to grapple with the ways they benefit from this system; individually, collectively, with their colleagues and with their clients.
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Will O’Berry, M.Ed
Will O’Berry and Dr. DiAngelo collaborate with our white affinity group to identify, confront, and dismantle the "white moves" that uphold systemic racism and erode trust and connection within relationships. Will O’Berry and Dr. DiAngelo challenge the widespread notion among white individuals that racism is solely about personal intent. They emphasize the understanding that racism is an institutional system that perpetuates inequality and violence. Will and Dr. DiAngelo encourage members of the white affinity group to examine how they benefit from this system on individual and collective levels, as well as in their interactions with colleagues and clients.