The Alliance for Strong Families and Communities’ envisions a healthy and equitable society that is just, fair, and inclusive, enabling all people to participate and reach their full potential. Building on this vision, the Alliance has launched a 15-month “Building Organizational Capacity for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion” (EDI) cohort to advance specific, significant change for emerging leaders, organizations, and the human services sector.
Woods was selected as one of only 15 organizations to participate in the cohort. As part of the application process, each organization had to identify an emerging leader of color (preferably under the age of 40) and a senior leader (not necessarily a person of color). Abraham Kamara, Woodlands Residential Manager, and Peter Shubiak, Executive Vice President and Chief Culture and Integration Officer, agreed to represent Woods. The cohort will coach and instruct organizations in deepening capacity to attract, develop, and retain leadership talent and advance the knowledge base in the sector.
Benefits of the cohort include:
- Leaders, including emerging leaders of color, will develop a better understanding of themselves and the principles and practices of EDI.
- Organizations will design and be equipped with plans to strengthen their equity, diversity, and inclusion practices.
- The cohort will create replicable models for organizational excellence in creating environments and cultures that attract, develop, and retain racially diverse leaders, primarily those under 40, in human services organizations.
This is a tremendous honor for Woods and will help to enrich our organization in ways we can’t yet imagine. Thank you to Abraham and Peter for taking on this added responsibility and for representing Woods so well.
