Hi all,

I hope you all had a nice long weekend! Wanted to check back in and see if any of you had thoughts about this question: How do we create a workplace culture that values diversity and inclusion, especially as it relates to disability?

On a similar note, I watched this video this morning of Victor Pineda (his part starts at about 5:28) and he was talking about inclusion and creating environments that facilitate inclusion. One thing he said really struck me – “Inclusion is a state of mind as well.” He was basically saying that you can physically build infrastructure for inclusion, but the attitudes and state of mind might be more important. He uses an example of going to Burning Man, which sounds really fun though I’ve never been. Anyway, check it out! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKmy6vgpLBE

Alison

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Alison Whyte

Executive Director

DC Developmental Disabilities Council

441 4^th Street NW, Suite 729N

Washington, DC 20001

202-727-8005 (office)

202-340-8563 (cell)

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alison.whyte@dc.gov

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From: Whyte, Alison (EOM)
Sent: Thursday, February 13, 2020 2:26 PM
To: diclc@nacdd.simplelists.com
Subject: Question for the DICLC listserv - workplace culture

Hi everyone,

My apologies for the delay in posting on this list. I am very excited to have a forum to discuss diversity and cultural and linguistic competence issues and ideas. This is one of my favorite topics. On the call we had in January, we raised several possible questions for this group and I'd love to begin discussing those. At the current moment, I'm curious about how each of you is thinking through this question:

How do we create a workplace culture that values diversity and inclusion, especially as it relates to disability?

As another thing to think about with this question, I will offer this statement that came up in a lunch and learn presentation I attended today - "Measuring diversity incentives maximizing diversity in terms of numbers, but may not address underlying causes of lack of diversity." The lunch and learn was facilitated by Andrea Jones-Rooy, who does many things, one of which is researching how to measure diversity and inclusion. She was phenomenal and if you're interested, she has a website - http://www.jonesrooy.com/

So, what are your thoughts?