scholarly journals Uniting to Advance Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in a Pandemic and Post-Pandemic World

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy Riches ◽  
Olivier Pourret ◽  
Susan Little
Keyword(s):  
European Association ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Global Pandemic ◽  
Equity And Inclusion

This contribution examines the context for the newly-founded Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Committee of the European Association of Geochemistry. The report summarises the work to advance DEI undertaken during 2020 under conditions of the COVID-19 global pandemic, acknowledges the various impacts for community members, and takes a forward view to opportunities of a post-pandemic world.

Protocol for the Development and Rapid-Response Deployment of Pandemic Acceptance and Commitment to Empowerment Response (PACER) Training (Preprint)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth Fung ◽  
Jenny JW Liu ◽  
Mandana Vahabi ◽  
Alan Tai-Wai Li ◽  
Mateusz Zurowski ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Intervention Program ◽  
Psychological Intervention ◽  
Healthcare Providers ◽  
Psychological Resilience ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Global Pandemic ◽  
Acceptance And Commitment ◽  
Ace Model ◽  
Chinese Canadian ◽  
Collective Empowerment

BACKGROUND During a global pandemic, it is critical to rapidly deploy a psychological intervention to support the mental health and resilience of highly affected individuals and communities. OBJECTIVE This is the impetus behind the development and implementation of the Pandemic Acceptance and Commitment to Empowerment Response (PACER) Training, an online blended-skills building intervention to increase the resilience and wellbeing of participants while promoting their individual and collective empowerment and capacity-building. METHODS Based on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and social justice-based Group Empowerment Psychoeducation (GEP), we developed the Acceptance and Commitment to Empowerment (ACE) model to enhance psychological resilience and collective empowerment. PACER program consists of six online interactive self-guided modules complemented by six weekly 90 minutes facilitator-led video-conference group sessions. RESULTS As of August 2021, a total of 325 participants have enrolled in the PACER program. Participants include frontline healthcare providers and Chinese Canadian community members. CONCLUSIONS The PACER program is an innovative intervention program with the potential for increasing psychological resilience and collective empowerment while reducing mental distress during the pandemic.

Making Community Beliefs and Capacities Visible Through Care-mongering During COVID-19

2022 ◽  
Vol 6 (GROUP) ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Tiffany Knearem ◽  
Jeongwon Jo ◽  
Chun-Hua Tsai ◽  
John M. Carroll
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Content Analysis ◽  
Social Interactions ◽  
Collective Efficacy ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Human Interaction ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Online Groups ◽  
Global Pandemic ◽  
Present Design

The COVID-19 global pandemic brought forth wide-ranging, unanticipated changes in human interaction, as communities rushed to slow the spread of the coronavirus. In response, local geographic community members created grassroots care-mongering groups on social media to facilitate acts of kindness, otherwise known as care-mongering. In this paper, we are interested in understanding the types of care-mongering that take place and how such care-mongering might contribute to community collective efficacy (CCE) and community resilience during a long-haul global pandemic. We conducted a content analysis of a care-mongering group on Facebook to understand how local community members innovated and developed care-mongering practices online. We observed three facets of care-mongering: showing appreciation for helpers, coming up with ways of supporting one another's needs, and continuing social interactions online and present design recommendations for further augmenting care-mongering practices for local disaster relief in online groups.

scholarly journals The Poetics of Life

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Víctor Manuel Rubio Carrillo
Keyword(s):  
Rural Communities ◽  
Learning Community ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Economic Policies ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Urban Centers ◽  
Global Pandemic ◽  
The Social ◽  
America South

The conditions generated by the COVID-19 global pandemic led our Musical Learning Community to improvise and face challenging social circumstances. We aimed at maintaining intact our long-term vision to create alternative cultural practices away from neoliberal subjugation. By exploring the lived experiences of musicians, dancers, artists, educators, and community members in North America, South America, and Asia, we learned how imagination became an imperative in the quest to create alternatives. Liberation, while confined, was carried out through artistic practices. However, neoliberal economic policies maintain a stronghold at the social level. Despite that, rural experiences showed different responses to the pandemic. While in urban centers, confinement and curfews were normative; in rural communities, artistic performances and togetherness were common. While in cities distancing was advised, in rural communities, proximity was embraced. We further reflect on how the current circumstances allowed us to improvise the birth of our action research community, which we propose as a humble grassroots alternative to neoliberal knowledge construction.

Leading From the Top

2021 ◽  
pp. 59-76
Author(s):  
Patrick Englert
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
University Presidents ◽  
White Men ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Police Violence ◽  
College And University ◽  
Competing Interests ◽  
Global Pandemic ◽  
Racial Injustice

Higher education institutions represent powerful structures that both empower and disenfranchise students, faculty, administrators, and communities, influencing the possibilities of progress and inclusion. This chapter focuses on the role presidents have as agents of ongoing engagement in civic and democratic ideals and efforts. In the midst of a global pandemic, police violence, racial injustice, and the conclusion to a divisive four-year presidency, 2020 presented college and university presidents with unique challenges on their campuses. Leading a campus is further complicated by competing interests and the identities of presidents themselves with most presidents identifying as white men in their 60s. Lastly, this chapter will share examples of best practices demonstrating ways in which presidents are driving democracy and civic engagement in varying ways centered in recent world events such as the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, violent deaths of Black community members, and the presidential election.

scholarly journals Reduced child maltreatment prevention service case openings during COVID-19

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kelly Whaling ◽  
Alissa Der Sarkissian ◽  
Natalie A. Larez ◽  
Jill D. Sharkey ◽  
Michael A. Allen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Child Maltreatment ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Community Members ◽  
School Closures ◽  
Research And Innovation ◽  
Global Pandemic ◽  
Child Maltreatment Prevention ◽  
Prevention Service

Abstract Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2; COVID-19), is a novel virus that has swept the world causing illness and death. Youth are at a heightened risk of experiencing increased rates of abuse given necessary measures required to slow the spread of the virus (e.g., indefinite school closures). We analyzed data from New York City’s Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) to investigate the frequency of child maltreatment prevention service case openings during this time of unprecedented stress. Two descriptive investigations were conducted. An examination of trend lines demonstrated that for 2013-2019, New York City’s new prevention case openings have consistently peaked in the month of March, for all seven years. New prevention case service openings in March 2020 do not peak, as they do in the preceding seven years. An independent samples t-test indicated that the frequency of case openings of March 2020 is significantly different than the frequency of case openings in March 2013-2019. Further, a Poisson regression model estimated that the odds of opening a new child maltreatment prevention case post-COVID-19 are 179% lower than opening a new child maltreatment case pre-COVID-19 (OR = -0.79, p < .001). These findings highlight the necessity of future research and innovation regarding child maltreatment prevention and intervention services during a global pandemic. This study has important implications for identification, prevention, and documentation for current support, and recommendations for local governments, community members, and practitioners are provided.

scholarly journals Exploring equity focus of the SHAWN WASH programme in Nigeria

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 546-555
Author(s):  
Ngozi Akwataghibe ◽  
Madeleen Wegelin ◽  
Leonie Postma ◽  
Wole Fajemisin ◽  
Maingaila Moono Banda ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Rural Areas ◽  
Data Availability ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Group Discussions ◽  
Financial Barriers ◽  
Positive Effects ◽  
Access To Water ◽  
Physically Disabled People ◽  
People With Physical Disabilities ◽  
Equity And Inclusion

Abstract This study assesses the extent to which equity was mainstreamed in the UNICEF Sanitation, Hygiene and Water in Nigeria (SHAWN) programme. Mixed methods consisting of desk review, survey of 2,105 households, individual survey of physically disabled people, focus group discussions with community members and in-depth interviews with key informants were used. The WASH project displayed equity considerations in selection of local government areas for its interventions – prioritizing underserved and unserved rural areas, females and places with the greatest needs – leading to increased access to water and sanitation for the poor. However, access was less for people with physical disabilities. Institutional and financial sustainability considerations challenged equity. Gender equality gaps driven by cultural and religious barriers existed in the composition of government WASH departments and community WASH Committees (WASHCOMS) despite the prominence accorded to gender issues. Operationalization of equity was hindered by poor data availability for assessment of poverty and needs; and cultural, environmental and financial barriers. WASHCOMS require specific training to operationalize equity and inclusion at community and household levels. The potential positive effects of a rights-based approach and equity on social and behavioural sustainability should be considered in future programming.

scholarly journals Strengthening Geochemistry through Community Action and Wider Influence

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy Riches ◽  
Equity European Association of Geochemistry's Diversity
Keyword(s):  
European Association ◽  
Community Action ◽  
Equity And Inclusion

An invited contribution concerning the activities of the European Association of Geochemistry's Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee

The art of touch: lending a hand to the sighted majority

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 433-451
Author(s):  
Georgina Kleege
Keyword(s):  
Visual Art ◽  
Cultural Knowledge ◽  
Blind People ◽  
Cultural Institutions ◽  
Blind Person ◽  
Marginalized Communities ◽  
Global Pandemic ◽  
Equity And Inclusion

This article describes three collaborative projects designed to explore tactile and haptic encounters with visual art. As a blind person, the author takes advantage of touch tours offered in many of the world’s museums. As rewarding as these can be, she often leaves feeling that there is something missing. She is aware that people who witness a touch tour for blind people, both companions who might be with them and strangers who might observe it, are curious, even envious. It seems only right that she, and other blind people who enjoy this privilege, have a responsibility to share the experience as a way to expand cultural knowledge about art. The projects described here enable her to begin to establish a taxonomy and vocabulary of tactile and haptic aesthetics, and model tactile descriptions of art that can benefit anyone. She does this both to reciprocate for the privilege cultural institutions bestowed on her, as well as to show that touch is not merely a poor substitute for sight, but rather a different mode of inquiry and appreciation. She hopes this work will support challenges to the ocularcentrism of the museum sector by showing how art can engage the full human sensorium. These projects all took place in the years leading up to the Covid-19 global pandemic and were a small part of initiatives at arts institutions to promote equity and inclusion by drawing on the knowledge and expertise of members of marginalized communities. As these institutions reopen post-pandemic and restructure their staff and programming, it remains to be known if they will continue the progress toward greater inclusion or return to previous models designed to serve only normative audiences. In her conclusion, the author speculates on the kind of systematic changes that will need to happen to continue to diversify museum audiences and increase multisensory access to art.

scholarly journals Wicked2 : The Increasing Wickedness of Educational Developers as DEI Cultural Influencers

2022 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lauri Dietz ◽  
China M. Jenkins ◽  
Laura Cruz ◽  
Amber Handy ◽  
Rita Kumar ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Lifelong Learning ◽  
Wicked Problems ◽  
Daily Basis ◽  
Wicked Problem ◽  
Global Pandemic ◽  
Equity And Inclusion

The global pandemic that began in 2020 amplified the chasm between higher education’s stated goals to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and the systemic realities that many students, instructors, and staff grapple with on a daily basis. We contend that attenuating the barriers to DEI outcomes means first acknowledging that DEI is a wicked problem, in that it is impossible to solve because of often competing, conflicting, and complex sociocultural forces from within and outside our institutions. We also contend that educational developers (EDs) are particularly well-situated within the higher education ecology to be key cultural influencers in how to mitigate DEI-related wicked problems by tapping into our deep commitment to lifelong learning as a means for honing and modeling an equity mindset.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document