Timeline of FrontLine’s
Anti-Racism Accomplishments

 

2024

  • Expanded our anti-racism curriculum to include deepen staff skills and knowledge. Employees who have completed the 8-hour 101 anti-racism training choose from one of the following:
    • Fostering Culture Change: Helps staff gain an understanding of how organizations participate in white dominant culture, consciously or unconsciously; and how to overcome barriers to culture change.
    • Antiracist Service Delivery: Help staff develop skills to provide therapeutic interventions for using an anti-racist lens.

2023

  • FrontLine leadership has been involved in the Race Equity Design Lab since it launched in 2017.
    • The Associate Director of Family & Young Adult Services co-chairs on the REEI Policy Exit committee, which is developing a framework to address systemic racism within the structures that Black young adults interact with, in order to reduce re-entry into the homeless system after successful exit. The committee’s impact statement is: If income and access to affordable housing are increased for young adults exiting homelessness, then fewer will experience recurrent homelessness. The committee meets bimonthly and is currently working to create a Property Management engagement campaign.
    • The Director of Family & Young Adult Services serves on the Entry subcommittee, which focuses on the inequities othat lead to Black Young adults from entering the homelessness system.
  • FrontLine's Chief Equity & Quality Officer began working with the Board of Directors to broaden their understanding of anti-racism and its implications for our work. The Board incorporates anti-racism education in every meeting (six per year).
  • Established a physical library of anti-racism books available to staff.
  • FrontLine's Quality Improvement Committee began to review all incident reports through an anti-racist lens and flag any incidents that involve or seem to involve race or racism. The committee then reviews these incidents quarterly to provide feedback to team members.
  • Partnered with Case Western Reserve University to launch the FrontLine Service Scholars program, a 50% reduction in tuition to staff interested in obtaining a Master’s degree in social work. This partnership is designed to reduce barriers to upward mobility. The first cohort of FrontLine employees began in August.
  • Hosted 2 "Mix & Mingle" events for staff with food, games, karaoke, and other activities. (What do the Mix & Mingles have to do with anti-racism?) Gordon Allport, a 20th century psychologist, popularized "contact theory." Contact theory suggests that sustained, intimate contact between people of different "races" has the most sustaining impact on fighting racist thoughts.
  • Hosted 17 Walk & Talk events throughout downtown Cleveland to build relationships among staff.
  • Created new position, Chief Equity and Quality Officer, to advance FrontLine's anti-racism work. The position was filled by long-time FrontLiner LaTonya Murray in January.

2022

  • Created anti-racism web pages on the agency website to share our anti-racism work with the community.
  • Developed an annual 8-hour anti-racism training that is mandatory for all staff. This training replaced the previous 1-hour cultural competency/implicit bias training and was created in partnership with Sage & Maven.
  • Began "Courageous Conversations," a monthly discussion series which supports open, authentic, and honest dialogue among staff on possible complex issues of social justice, race, privilege, and other tough topics, while maintaining an atmosphere of trust and respect.
  • Launched a six-month strategic planning process and identified anti-racism as a central priority of the process. Our consultants, Strategy Design Partners and Sage & Maven, were selected based on their capacity to lead planning through an explicitly anti-racism lens.
  • Established an internal anti-racism site for staff to learn how to get involved in anti-racist intitiatives, get updates on the agency's anti-racism efforts, and access resources to continue their ongoing personal anti-racist journies.
  • Introduced mandatory anti-racism questions to include in all candidate interviews.
  • Updated annual performance reviews to include opportunities to set anti-racism goals
  • Added an anti-racism/cultural competency discussion topic to the direct service staff supervision form.
  • Established a committee to review discipline through an anti-racist lens.
  • Provided facilitation trainings to staff desiring to lead conversations and groups centered on resiliency and anti-racism.
  • Expanded staff-led "Black Resiliency" and "White Ally" groups to include six new groups. Groups meet regularly for staff to support one another in anti-racism. (First groups established 2020.)
  • Offered LGBTQ+ Safe Space Training to all staff.
  • Established an Anti-Racist Steering Committee to lead the anti-racist initiative within the agency.

2021

  • Began hosting quarterly all-staff townhalls to share information and collect feedback about the agency's anti-racism initiatives.
  • FrontLine Board of Directors participated in 2.5-hour DEI training with Equius Group.
  • Launched anti-racism subcommittees for employees to participate in leading race equity work within the agency.
  • Hosted first all-staff townhall to provide updates on the agency’s DEI work and invite staff to participate in the agency’s anti-racism subcommittees:
    1. Norms and Culture
    2. Service Delivery
    3. Policies and Procedures
    4. External Communications & Partnerships
    5. Content & Resource Library

2020

  • 55 managers participated in a 15-hour Race, Equity and Inclusion training led by Equius Group. This training taught participants to:

    1. Develop a common language to discuss Diversity Equity and Inclusion.

    2. Use the Four Levels of Racism as a framework for analysis and action.

    3. Explore the Equity Competent Leadership Model™

    4. Learn about the historical and present impact of bias, privilege, and oppression.

    5. Understand how to diminish conscious and unconscious biases

    6. Identify choice points and individual actions to promote equity and inclusion.
  • Began participating in the Race Equity Design Lab to work toward improving inequities for Black young adults.
  • 7 representatives from executive leadership, management, and direct service participated in the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN) virtual summit, Being Anti-Racist is Central to Trauma Informed Care (FrontLine was one of only six groups selected nationally to participate from 70 applicant organizations.)**
    • The cohort left the summit with a plan to advance DEI work in four areas:Agency Norms and Culture; Service Delivery; Organizational Policies and Practices; and External Messages, Partnerships, and Advocacy.
  • FrontLine recognizes Juneteenth as a paid agency holiday in lieu of Columbus Day.

2019

  • Staff attended Undesign the Redline, an interactive exhibit exploring the history of race, class, U.S. housing policy, and how this legacy of inequity and exclusion continues to shape our communities.
  • FrontLine leadership launched a weekly anti-racism discussion alternating between:
  • The Executive Leadership team participated in a week-long Equity Competent Leadership training led by Equius Group
  • Following the training, executive leadership conducted a 52-question survey to capture staff’s assessments of the agency’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) in three areas: Training, Policies & Procedures, and Service Delivery. These results serve as a baseline for future surveys.

2018

  • Six FrontLine staff completed the YWCA Race Equity Design Lab. As part of the design lab, 40 FrontLine staff completed the interagency racial equity assessment.