ENVISIONING CULTURALLY-COMPETENT + COMMUNITY-CENTERED HEALTHCARE + EDUCATION SPACES, BEYOND JUST “HIRING DIVERSE STAFF”
What if creating inclusive and equitable spaces isn’t just a linear, mathematical formula (educate staff => increase representation by hiring more diverse practitioners + teachers => attract more diversity in clientele).
This part is basic + foundational. OF COURSE we need to see representation of racialized people in ALL spaces. But, truly CULTURALLY-COMPETENT healthcare + education is EXPANSIVE, beyond this linear formula.
TRULY culturally-competent care requires a deep understanding of the values and ethics that underlie families and healing beliefs in Indigenous, Caribbean, African, LatinX, Middle Eastern + South Asian families.
Without understanding the connection that many racialized people hold to our ancestors, beliefs about intergenerational trauma, the commitment we keep to ensuring that our ENTIRE community is fed and safe - we’re STILL trying to fit all people into the colonial, western mindset of medicine and education.
We live in a world of TOXIC INDIVIDUALISM. We’ve seen it with the collective Covid-19 response. Clinics offering expensive “immune-boosting” packages to those who can afford it, while our elderly and marginalized communities members lay dying alone. Schools teaching online, while kids without wifi or parents who can supervise their learning, miss out on education.
NO ONE GETS LEFT BEHIND
Individualism is deeply discouraged in community-centred care models. This doesn’t mean we don’t celebrate individual health + wellbeing - but, it does mean we are ONE FOR ALL AND ALL FOR ONE.
Community-centered care provides funding for wellness and educational initiatives that reach everyone in the community.
Community-centered care places wellness opportunites outside of institutions that systemically exclude oppressed members of oppressed communities.
COMMUNITY-CENTERED CARE means that rather that rather than supplying 25% of the community with expensive vitamin C, that we brainstorm how to make a tonic rich in vitamin-C that 100% of the community can access.
COMMUNITY-CENTERED CARE means that if you have the money to shop for organic kale for your family, that you buy an extra bunch of kale to drop on the porch of your elderly neighbour who can’t safely leave her house. If you have a garden, you grow for your entire neighbourhood. You plant seeds to grow immi-boosting herbs that your elderly neighbour needs.
COMMUNITY-CENTERED CARE means that realizing that you have enough space in your backyard in the summer for kids without wifi to spend some time on your lawn, sharing your wifi, so they too can learn to read online.