Interrupt Racism: Hillside continues to engage with local community organizers to disrupt and dismantle structural and institutional racism. This year, a diverse working committee of Hillside employees, representing all levels of the agency, is receiving training and support from the Urban League of Rochester’s Interrupt Racism program. This yearlong initiative is helping our people more deeply address issues around racial equity in our specific context: By identifying inequitable policies, practices, and behaviors, we’re working to create an environment where all employees can thrive.

DE&I Living Action Plan: This living document has been developed to describe Hillside’s continuously evolving commitment to learning and setting tangible goals and concrete actions for all members of our community regarding diversity, equity, and inclusion. The Living Action Plan charts a path that keeps review, reflection, and renewal at its core.

Priorities for the next year, outlined in the Living Action Plan, include the following:

• Vendors—we’ll assess minority and woman-owned vendors engaged by Hillside throughout the agency.
• Communications—we’ll strengthen Hillside’s messaging on the many ways in which DE&I is critical to our work, and communicate the “why” of DE&I work to all employees.
• Leadership Development & Training—we’ll develop opportunities to learn about un/conscious bias and microaggressions that may be experienced by employees and individuals we serve.
• Data Analytics—we’ll expand demographic data to reflect our employees and the individuals more accurately we serve.

As the calendar turns over to 2024, Hillside’s activities in the DE&I space are ongoing:

A new 12-month cohort of the Urban League of Rochester’s Interrupt Racism initiative kicks off in January, and Hillside will again participate in this vital community-based antiracism program. Our “Change Team”—a diverse working committee of up to 10 members, representing all levels of the organization—will receive training and support to help Hillside more deeply address issues around equity in their specific context. By helping us identify inequitable policies, practices, and behaviors, the Interrupt Racism program will support our commitment to creating an equitable work environment where all employees can thrive.

Hillside’s new LGBTQ Affinity Group will begin meeting in January, providing a dependable forum for our employees in the LGBTQ+ community to engage and discuss relevant experiences, issues, and ideas affecting them every day. This group joins our previously formed Hillside Men of Color and Hillside Women of Color affinity groups, which recognize the importance of helping our people find helpful connections and support.

Finally, our development of Hillside’s first Living Action Plan has made great progress, with the finish line in sight for the inaugural draft of this essential document. Of course, as a “living” plan, it will never really be finished—but it will nonetheless be a critical foundation of Hillside’s ongoing work in creating a more diverse, equitable and inclusive community for our employees and the communities we serve. Excerpts from the Living Action Plan will be shared on this page later in 2024.

Creating and maintaining a more diverse, equitable and inclusive community is an ongoing journey – and any journey, no matter how long, is best served by a road map to help us understand where we’ve been and where we’re headed.

One valuable navigation tool for Hillside’s DE&I journey is our Living Action Plan, a strategic resource that’s now in development. The Living Action Plan will identify key milestones that support our growth as a DE&I-focused agency; once completed, it will ensure that day-to-day activities are in alignment with our long-term goals in this critical work.

The first step in developing the Living Action Plan is to listen—to our staff, to our community, and especially to the youth, adults and families we serve. A series of meetings and discussions are now taking place and will continue into 2024, as we gather insights from throughout our Hillside family. That input will inform our priorities and our paths to a more DE&I-focused future.

We’ll share more about the Hillside DE&I Living Action Plan in the months to come. Thank you for your interest in our work!

Although DE&I is a year-round concern for the Hillside community, autumn traditionally sees a particular increase in employee activities following the vacation-rich summer months. For example, two affinity groups – the Hillside Men of Color and Hillside Women of Color groups – have resumed their regular meetings to connect and provide support, discussion, community engagement, celebration, networking and professional development. All Hillside employees of color are encouraged to participate.

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At our recent Employee Conference, we launched the next steps in our adoption of Safe Zone training, a highly interactive and in-depth effort dedicated to enhancing employees’ knowledge of the LGBTQ+ community. Safe Zone training is just one way in which Hillside is committed to active allyship through an intersectional lens. We’ll be offering more opportunities for our teams to engage in this and other DE&I trainings in the future.

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Happy National Hispanic Heritage Month! Through October 15, our staff and communities nationwide will be celebrating the histories, cultures and contributions of American citizens whose ancestors came from Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean and Central and South America. This page at the Smithsonian offers a wide range of insights and resources about Hispanic cultural contributions—check it out!

National Pride Month was in June, but the greater Rochester area has a distinct tradition of continuing that celebration into July: this year’s Rochester Pride Celebration Parade takes place at 1pm Saturday, July 15, starting at the corner of Alexander Street and Park Avenue. Dozens of Hillside employees will be marching – join us!

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July is also Disability Pride Month, and the word “pride” is particularly important in there—beyond awareness, this effort is intended to foster and celebrate the accomplishments and contributions of individuals with disabilities. Hillside partners with many individuals and families for whom various forms of disability aren’t just challenges to overcome, but part of an identity that should be accepted and cherished.

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Finally, BIPOC Mental Health Awareness Month in July 2023 features a campaign theme of Culture, Community, & Connection. At Hillside, we see every day the linkages between poverty and mental illness – as well as how those connections disproportionately affect members of the Black, Indigenous and People of Color communities, for whom structural racism and inequity frequently only amplify those toxic forces. Awareness is only the beginning! Mental Health America has more information and ways to get involved here.

On March 28, Hillside was proud to sponsor and participate in the 12th annual Connecting the Dots health and human service conference in Rochester. A number of Hillside clinicians were in attendance at the event, the first of a number of conferences we will support this year. 

Also last month, Hillside completed our yearlong cohort participation in Interrupt Racism, an ongoing initiative developed by the Urban League of Rochester. In recapping our time with the Interrupt Racism cohort, we were asked to look back at our agency achievements during the past year. A few standouts included:

• Completing a leadership diversity pilot
• Reinforcing our agency-wide messaging about DE&I
• Supporting diversity within our recruiting by exploring options to reach historically underrepresented groups
• Reviewing and updating language in our job descriptions and postings, for greater inclusivity
• Bringing in more than a dozen subject matter experts to present to staff on topics ranging from institutional racism to the history of Native Americans
• Initiating DE&I-focused projects aimed at supporting our employees and the youth, families and adults with whom we partner

Although our formal participation came to an end, we’re excited to continue the work associated with this vital initiative—within our organization, and in the community. For instance, later this month Hillside will be among the participants at an Interrupters Conference presented by the Urban League of Rochester for current and previous members of the Interrupt Racism cohort. The event will feature a keynote address by Dr. Christopher Metzler, an international human rights attorney and author.

April is also Celebrate Diversity Month, a national observance that recognizes and honors the diversity surrounding us all. Our Regional DE&I Committees are discussing ways in which Hillside can bring this spirit to life on a local level.

Diversity is something we celebrate at Hillside. We know that our impact in the community depends on our people, and so we’re intentional about creating a great place to work by continuing to add to an already wonderful mix of people in our Hillside family. 

Our work associated with equity and inclusion takes this an important step further, by creating fairness and equitable access to opportunities, and by letting people’s voices be part of the discussions that help guide decision-making.

By merging different perspectives and lived experiences in the work we do with our youth, adults and families, Hillside is able to reach levels of performance that wouldn’t be possible if everything were viewed through a single lens.

In short, everyone benefits from Hillside’s DE&I journey. It’s both the right thing to do, and the smart thing to do—for our people, for those we serve, and for the communities we all call home.