Skip to main content

The Office of Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Accessibility and Antiracism

Scroll down to see a snapshot of our mandate, goals, ways of working and what we can offer your team at UHN.

Our Mandate

Delivering strategic and data-driven action plans to drive systems transformation in IDEAA

The IDEAA Office at UHN is dedicated to building strategies and driving systems transformation using research, intra-organizational data and the lived-experiences of our equity-seeking communities. UHN IDEAA works with departments to develop action plans that apply IDEAA best practices to reach KPI’s for fostering a diverse, inclusive and accessible workplace that welcomes all to do their best work.

To learn more about implementing IDEAA strategies within your department, please contact jacqueline.silvera@uhn.ca or zainab.jafri@uhn.ca

01

Building accessible, effective and precise education and IDEAA-curriculum

The IDEAA Office provides extensive, customized IDEAA education to all sites, departments and teams affiliated with UHN. Our approach to building IDEAA curriculum relies on the unique ways of working within the healthcare setting, the specific needs of distinct and unique teams at UHN, and using principles of universal design to ensure our education is accessible, precise and effective.

Available modes of delivery:

  • Webinars
  • Workshops
  • Modules
  • Workbooks
  • Live trainings (in person, virtual)

If you are interested in learning more about acquiring education for your team at UHN, please contact zainab.jafri@uhn.ca

02

Supporting equity-seeking communities across UHN

All work conducted by the IDEAA Office is dedicated to protecting and uplifting the needs of Equity-Seeking Groups (ESGs). The IDEAA Office manages the scope, goals and programming carried out by the Black Legacy Committee, Accessibility Advisory Committee and the 2SLGBTQIA+ Committee.

If you are interested in starting an employee resource group at UHN, please reach out to jacqueline.silvera@uhn.ca or zainab.jafri@uhn.ca.

03

What we offer

Researchers

The IDEAA Office works closely with researchers interested in exploring aspects of health equity, social determinants of health and carrying out studies that affect or involve ESGs.

Some examples of what we are able to offer:

In-depth + custom education 

We have worked with research groups to develop training that is custom to their project needs, including:

  1. Workshops to introduce concepts for inclusion, diversity, equity, accessibility and antiracism
  2. Trainings on the intersection of ageism, ableism and race
  3. Trainings which discuss barriers to receiving cancer-care faced by ESGs
  4. Trainings which discuss barriers to inclusion in clinical trials
  5. Consultations for developing trauma-informed methods of data collection
  6. Developing community-informed questionnaires to collect socio-economic data

This kind of collaboration can require several weeks/months because it involves the research teams directly and multiple rounds of reviewing the resource, honing in on the reflection questions, adding/removing learnings and so on.

Ideally, a request for custom education should be made (minimum) a few weeks in advance of beginning the project itself due to

  1. The time commitment
  2. Level of collaboration (we will rely heavily on feedback/review from the team to advise on what is/is not relevant to the project)
  3. The resource/education/training that is eventually produced at the end of this collaboration is meant to be taken up by researchers/teams at the very start of their projects so that their work can incorporate the necessary mindset shift/IDEAA lens throughout the duration of the study/project.

 

Consultation  

We welcome researchers to engage in ongoing conversations with our team to incorporate IDEAA elements into the approach/framework of their project and to add necessary context to the questions the project is aiming to answer.

For example, a team might consult with us on:

  1. The appropriate language/terminology to use when collecting sociodemographic data (race, gender, religion, SeS and all other areas of the social location)
  2. How to ask questions safely, appropriately and respectfully using trauma-informed methods
  3. Building a governance model which reflects diverse membership
  4. Using EGAP and OCAP principles in data collection.

These consultations can lead to outcomes like custom education and training, but can occur at any time.

“Just-in-time” trainings

If you are close to beginning your research study but would still like to incorporate IDEAA into the aim of your work, we highly encourage you schedule a consultation with our team. Our office aims to provide as much training, education and guidance as possible regardless of limitations on time. Examples of “just-in-time” collaborations with researchers include:

  1. Crash-courses on implicit, unconscious bias
  2. Trauma-informed approaches to surveying ESGs
  3. Introductory courses on racism, ableism, sexism and intersecting identities

We also have many pre-existing workbooks that can serve as foundational learnings in IDEAA, including resources to support newcomer, impoverished and Indigenous patient populations.

If you are interested in booking a consultation with IDEAA to support your research goals, please contact jacqueline.silvera@uhn or zainab.jafri@uhn.ca

01

People Leaders

Our goal at UHN IDEAA is to support leaders at every point in their IDEAA journey.

We encourage leaders to reach out to IDEAA for:

  1. One-on-one coaching and consultation
  2. Questions about increasing IDEAA-competency within their department
  3. Opportunities for collaboration
  4. Implementing IDEAA-strategy into the mandate of their department.

02

Employees and other members of #TeamUHN

The IDEAA Office is dedicated to offering confidential safe-spaces to discuss incidents of harassment, discrimination, workplace violence and non-physical harm in the realm of inclusion, diversity, equity, accessibility and antiracism.

If you have been affected been a violation of the Respectful Work and Learning Environment Policy, the Antiracism and Anti-Black Racism Policy, Gender Policy, or any other Equity Policy at UHN, please do not hesitate to reach out to jacqueline.silvera@uhn.ca or zainab.jafri@uhn.ca.

In addition to formal complaints, the IDEAA Office welcomes staff in need of support to schedule appointments with our office on Microsoft Teams to discuss questions and concerns about IDEAA at UHN in a safe, confidential setting.

03