This is more than a moment; this is a movement.
We stand firm and vehemently believe that Black lives matter. As a team, we have spent this past year, following the murder of George Floyd, listening and educating ourselves further on systemic racism and how to move in a deliberately anti-racist direction with an end-goal of becoming a truly anti-racist organization. We are humbled by and grateful for this opportunity for ourselves, both as individuals and as a company, to be able to reflect and identify areas that we can work on improving, which will hopefully lead us in the direction of creating a more inclusive and safe space for our patients to heal, as well as for our employees to thrive. We also want to become true allies for BIPOC-owned businesses and individuals in the maternal and reproductive healthcare fields.
This is more than a moment; this is a movement. We are committed to enacting change, both in our internal culture and practices as well as the way we serve our larger community. We have pledged to focus on five key areas (listed below) and are approaching these areas as a group with input from everyone at Yinova from practitioners to the front desk to our administrative team. Together we are creating goals both as individuals and as a center, and we will strive to hold ourselves accountable to these commitments.
Education
We are dedicated to internal education regarding the vastly damaging manifestation of racism in the healthcare system and the US in general. We are committed to:
- Taking part in anti-racism training as a team on an ongoing basis.
- Identifying and providing on-going education for our team on key issues, including anti-racism and bias, inequities in the healthcare system, and in maternal and reproductive health in particular.
Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Awareness in our Workforce
We will actively foster a more inclusive organization and we will take time to evaluate our current practices for bias and look for ways to improve our hiring pipeline across all positions. We are committed to:
- Developing a team of administration, front desk, practitioners, and bodyworkers with a focus towards increasing BIPOC representation in our workforce.
- Implementing an oversight committee made up of staff from each position to evaluate the hiring process to ensure that the goals of these groups are being met appropriately.
Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Awareness in our Environment and Communications
Our goal is to cultivate a patient community that is more safe and diverse. We will evaluate our current communications and environment for bias and seek to make appropriate changes. We are committed to:
- Developing frameworks for communication that are more informed and inclusive, and completing an audit on existing communications to ensure all verbiage is written inclusively.
- Creating more content geared specifically toward the BIPOC community.
- Assessing our physical centers and determining ways we can create a more inclusive and safe space to heal.
Outreach & Service
We will use our skills, resources, and space to provide support to organizations that advocate for the BIPOC community and reproductive justice. We are committed to:
- Establishing national, regional, and local partnerships to support through volunteer and fundraising opportunities, specifically for policy change, reproductive justice, and healthcare justice.
- Amplifying the service initiatives of our team members or community.
Advocacy
We will endeavor to use our platform, reach, and events to ally with BIPOC voices and businesses who are working to create an inclusive healthcare community. We are committed to:
- Auditing our retail items, supplies, and partners to identify opportunities to include more products from BIPOC-owned businesses.
- Identifying key organizations involved with reproductive justice who could benefit from our platform as a way to amplify their message.
- Creating and attending more events in partnership with BIPOC practitioners and organizations, and seeking out topics that are more inclusive.
This is just a start. We know we have a lot of work ahead of us and we are grateful that this movement has inspired us to improve our center and the ways we reach and offer care to our patients and beyond.
We truly welcome feedback as well as guidance on further actions we can and should take. Please feel free to reach out to Emma (emma@yinova.com) from our communications team with any ideas, thoughts, readings, or whatever else you have in mind.
