Equity Statement
Child Care Council is dedicated to embracing the opportunity to mindfully and thoughtfully create a more equitable, inclusive, and diverse organization. We recognize that to be the premier resource for providers and families for their child care needs in our community that we must do our internal work as an organization to address the challenges of systemic racism and foster an antiracist and inclusive workplace. We are committed to helping our families, staff and providers build strong and healthy relationships with the children that they serve. To support our children and families better, we must do so through culturally relevant practices, and working together to support and listen to each other. These core components will be a standard for the Council moving forward and will guide every aspect of the work that we do.
Child Care Council acknowledges that members of our community are affected by several overlapping and intersectional discriminations and disadvantages. This considers people’s overlapping identities and experiences to understand the complexity of prejudices and systemic biases based on gender identity, disability status, socioeconomic status, and religion. Our institutions have often failed to recognize the intersectional nature of these experiences and occurrences of prejudice and racism that our staff and other community members have endured. Our organization, like most, must admit that we need to do a better job of acknowledging and combating all forms of systemic oppression.
Looking forward, we will continue to evolve and adapt to ensure that we are building and sustaining an inclusive and equitable organization and learning environment for all staff, children, families, and child care providers. We strongly believe every person on our team is committed to expanding their learning about new cultures and a willingness to engage with people who have different lived experiences. To move forward with our organizational commitment to racial equity, we have partnered with 540WMain to provide us with backbone support and consulting for our DEAI efforts. In doing so, this further allows us to lean more towards our goal; to intentionally set and model the collaborative standard of creating an equitable, inclusive, and diverse organization to better serve families in our community. When challenges do arise, we will be prepared to address issues and will work together to discover, design, and deliver solutions in a timely fashion. We will support and advocate for diversity across all child care modalities and work to ensure that all voices and perspectives are heard, respected, and valued; especially the voices of people that have been the most marginalized in our communities.
Through this ongoing process, we have and will continue to address the fact that we, as members of our work community, and supporters of our organization, have internalized stereotypes, biases, myths, and conditionings that lead to both conscious and unconscious bias, stereotypes, prejudices, and racism. Consequently, as we recognize these tough issues, we will face these challenges to help each of us learn and grow together. Positive communication and open-mindedness will be reflective of our organization’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion.
We recognize that this journey is not linear, and we are open to feedback to evolve towards becoming an antiracist organization. Together, senior leadership, our Board of Directors, and staff all acknowledge that racism is a persistent, consistent, and structurally embedded crisis in our community and country that negatively impacts the children and families we serve. To improve outcomes for all children and families, Child Care Council is committed to moving forward on our antiracist journey to continue to support all families, providers, and businesses in Monroe, Livingston, and Wayne counties when it comes to their child care needs and services.