9 Ways We Focused on Equity In 2022

Written by Sandra Olarte-Hayes LCSW, Director of Equity

The end of the year speeds towards us. I have a ton to do and I know I have to write another blog post and reflect on what our practice and I (as the Director of Equity in particular) did this year to carry out our mission, vision, and values. As I sit to do so, I find myself first reflecting on the evolution of this blog as I go through each of my posts from the last year to collect the data for our end of the year report.

A year ago, I found myself anxious about writing so publicly, I post very little on social media outside of political posts and to fundraise for my favorite organizations. In the beginning, I edited and re-edited and oftentimes made my partner edit my posts before publishing. It is interesting to see how It has gotten easier…how I have grown. I’ve gotten to write about topics that really matter to me and highlighted the work of people I care about and respect. I’ve also been significantly more vulnerable than I would have expected from myself on a public platform and shared more of myself than I thought I would. I’ve also come to find the practice of writing these posts to be a grounding end-of-the-month ritual.

As I’ve compiled the end of year data this week, I’ve also noticed a desire within myself to show that we did more, offered more, hosted more, grew more in all areas than we did last year. My guess is that this instinct comes from my own internalized capitalism so I want to name it and check it. The truth is that we did do significantly more in some key ways this year, and we did less in others. This is because of how we chose to focus our energy as we continue to evolve and realize how to best carry out our mission and I am okay with it.

A lot has happened this year and for the rest of this post, I will highlight how we centered equity at our practice this year in ways that cannot be captured by statistics.

Flexibility and Adaptability

We had to change course because we tried things and they did not work out. After shifting the format of our DEI Consultations in 2021, we realized in 2022 that our team again needed something different. After getting feedback, we decided to pause our DEI Consultation for the summer to give team members more time to take care of themselves. Our team shared that they wanted to dive deeper into each topic and wanted flexibility in how they engaged and so we came back in the fall in a new format; our DEI Consultation became a DEI-focused book club and consultation group. Each month, we read a different DEI-focused book and come together to discuss where we see ourselves in the book, what the content means for us personally, and how to incorporate it professionally with clients.

We also developed, announced, and implemented policies that we then had to change. When I reflect on the amount of time I spent this year writing and rewriting internal policies, it blows my mind but it feels worth it to be open to feedback from our team and clients, change course when we need to, and do what is right and necessary.

Learning and Growing Together

This fall, we trained our entire staff in the Trauma Conscious Yoga Method (TCYM) , which is an indigenous, pre-colonial somatic healing modality developed by Nityda Gessel. As we continue to serve communities who are Black, Indigenous, and people of color who have experienced complex trauma that impacts the body, it felt important for us to expand our knowledge and challenge one another to learn collective and indigenous healing practices. The training was beautiful, powerful, and deeply connecting for our team.

Finding New Ways to Support Staff

This year, we developed new benefits and offerings to support our staff. In the past we allowed clinicians to choose between different financial benefits which proved costly and challenging. After asking for staff’s input, we decided to streamline our benefits offerings to offer new benefits like paid time off and a 401k to all staff. We also created new Leadership Team roles by hiring a Billing Specialist and Clinical Lead to better support staff clinically and by taking billing responsibilities off of their plate.

Centering Family and Relationships

We worked hard to center relationships among our team members and between our team and the people that they love. Multiple staff members chose to take time off to grow their families this year, We continued to expand our restorative and professional development offerings to give our team time together to connect.

Accountability and Openness to Feedback

We value accountability and communication. This year, we developed new ways of giving and accepting feedback from our team. We launched our first yearly 360° Survey from staff, implemented a new Professional Development Process that allows leadership to give feedback to staff members and invites staff to give one-on-one feedback and set professional goals that they would like our practice’s support in reaching. We believe that communication needs to be mutual and should happen both individually and collectively.

Transparency

We got clearer on our expectations of our staff. We fine-tuned our job expectations to match what the practice truly needs to be sustainable and long-lasting. We re-wrote policies to align with these expectations and had difficult conversations. Through this process, we also caught errors in our processes that made our expectations harder to reach for our therapists. We corrected these and we apologized.

Learning in Affinity Groups

In January, we launched our COllective Healing In Action program which consists of affinity groups for mental health professionals. Affinity groups are identity-based consultation groups where therapists who share a core aspect of their identities come together to support one another, dialogue, and hold one another accountable in this work. We launched groups for Black, White, non-Black persons of color, and LGBTQ+ therapists. One year later, we have learned a lot. Some of our groups struggled to recruit, others struggled to build safety within the group due to power dynamics in the room, others lost members. Each of our affinity groups is either re-launching or adding members this January and February and this program continues to grow.

Decentralizing Community Support

In previous years, leadership at our practice held most of the outward facing work and personally led the charge on developing community partnerships and facilitating wellness offerings and trainings for the community. This year, we were intentional about decentralizing this work and inviting our therapists to take ownership and leadership. We had more clinicians share their knowledge by presenting, leading trainings, facilitating groups, and speaking on panels than ever before. Staff developed their own community partnerships. We have an amazing and knowledgeable staff and it felt powerful to watch them lead and share what they know with our community.

Opening New Lines of Communication

This year, we made a commitment to share more with our community about the internal workings at our practice. We did just that. In 2022, Vanessa Newton, our Founder and Director launched a book for therapists looking to launch their own private practices. The book is called Laying the Foundatio for your Private Practice and it spotlights what Vanessa has learned founding Colors of Austin Counseling. Vanessa also launched her podcast called Brave & Well with Vanessa Newton LCSW-S which covers topics like values-based entrepreneurship, boundary-setting, and equity in business. Lastly, this monthly report has allowed us to spotlight the work of our therapists and partners and share more with the community about what we care about and who we are.

These are some of the themes from our story this year. I am very proud of our work this year and am excited to continue challenging one another and better showing up for our community in the new year. I thank you for being on this journey with us.