As mental health providers in our community – social justice, diversity, equity, and inclusion have to be at the core of who we are and what we do. We would be doing a disservice to our clients, colleagues, and community if we didn’t address the barriers that exist for clients of color and address the harm being done.
But, it isn’t enough to simply express a nice sentiment, we have to put that commitment into practice through action within our treatment, our company, our community, our hiring practices, our systems, the clinical training we do, the books we read, and the company partnerships we build.
At IFC, we believe:
Diversity is valuing differences in race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, identity, ability, and socioeconomic status. It is about truly embracing uniqueness.
Equity is about aligning IFC and our clinical practice to assure that people of all races, cultures, genders, sexual orientations, abilities, and socioeconomic statuses have genuine opportunities to thrive.
Inclusion is about creating an environment in which everyone is respected and included. It is paying attention to who is missing and how we can add more seats to our table.
We recognize we have work to do on all of these principals. As individual clinicians and as IFC as a whole, we are committed to and are actively working to live out diversity, equity, and inclusion across everything we do.
We recognize that systemic racism, sexism, discrimination, violence, harmful language, and damaging stereotypes are deeply embedded in our culture and requires active attention and action to address. In everything we do we strive to be conscious of these things and speak up when we see bias come up in our community and with one another.
This important commitment alongside real action is critical to the connections we make, the impact we have on children, our effectiveness in treatment, and making a lasting impact in our community.