DREI Processing and Training
Challenge
Ensure foundational understanding of DREI concepts. NAMI Chicago’s core values are trust, support, collaboration, and equity. Racism and structural inequities in our city and country have caused deep pain, loss, and trauma. As an organization, we acknowledge this, and as individuals, we experience and witness it.
Actions
Conducted staff-wide training with an expert facilitation partner. As an organization, we took immediate action a year ago in response to the tragic murder of George Floyd and the historic global movement for racial equity and justice that Mr. Floyd’s horrific killing inspired. In response to the need expressed courageously by our staff, NAMI Chicago engaged the support and expertise of Morten Group LLC, a national consulting firm based in Chicago specializing in diversity, racial equity, and inclusion (DREI) assessments and training.
In the summer of 2020, Morten Group facilitated processing and listening sessions with NAMI Chicago staff. These listening sessions created a safe space for reflection and contemplation in response to the traumatizing experiences of the COVD-19 pandemic and the highly publicized video footage of Mr. Floyd’s murder. Throughout the year, the NAMI Chicago leadership team formalized an ongoing partnership with the Morten Group to provide education and serve as accountability partners in our organization’s ongoing anti-racism work.
Outcomes
Increased learning and understanding, and identification of ongoing opportunities is DREI work. The Morten Group and NAMI Chicago partnership grew in the spring of 2021. The NAMI Chicago staff participated in a diversity, race, equity, and inclusion training titled Creating Cultures of Racial Equity: Foundations. Together we worked to learn more about one another's identities, experiences, and views to facilitate increased connection and trust, which are necessary for successful race equity (RE) efforts. In addition, we created shared understandings of foundational concepts and terminology connected to RE and examined how these show up in our work and lives.
Quote
Part of NAMI Chicago’s racial equity work has been to ensure our mental health framework takes into account the impact of racism, inequity and discrimination on people's ability to be well and maintain their wellness every day. NAMI Chicago’s "recovery model" framework highlights health, home, community and purpose as the foundations of wellness. In 2020, we updated this model to incorporate equity into the center, as a thread that runs through each piece of the model. When we live in a society where there is equity in housing, access to care, community, and safe physical environments, then there will be equity in the ability to be well.