Presenters: Joanne Baird, PhD, OTR/L, FAOTA; Ketki D. Raina, PhD, OTR/L, FAOTA

Systemic racism is deeply ingrained within the education system and requires collective societal action to uproot it successfully (Grenier, 2020). Change within educational institutions is predicated on the paradigm of cultural competency, which is viewed as oppressive, tokenistic and provides an artificial competency framework for cultural assessment (Beagan, 2018). Additionally, significant barriers (lack of time, knowledge, and diversity), have prevented many professional graduate healthcare programs from increasing their training diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) training (Brown et. al, 2011). Our goal is to foster just communities by enhancing entry-level healthcare practitioner education. We will meet our goal by enriching student knowledge and skills to support core DEI principles. This workshop describes the use of student partnerships, stakeholder input, and an advisory board to drive curricular change. The professional learning and skill development goals for this workshop are to 1) describe varying views of cultural competency within education; 2) describe the use of a stakeholder-driven review to evaluate the degree to which themes related to DEI are integrated within a graduate professional curriculum; 3) examine the challenges encountered and 4) explore the themes related to DEI-related curricular improvements and recommended changes to increase a sense of belonging amongst students.

Register

If you require an accommodation to participate in this event, please contact the Office for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion at diversity@pitt.edu by July 21

This workshop is a part of the 2021 Diversity Forum.