Our Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Declaration

Painted hands and hearts

By: Larry Milan

Enhancing diversity, equity and inclusion at Connecticut Children’s is a key strategic priority for our organization. We welcome the opportunity to build on our strong foundation to ensure a culture that is welcoming and inclusive for all team members, patient families and community partners. We are now at an exciting and critical point of our diversity, equity and inclusion journey. After spending much of the past year listening to our team members, we proudly share our new Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Declaration.

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The declaration details our commitment to working together to address racism, discrimination and bias, and to advance equity. It includes input from our team members, which was gathered by an external partner through interviews, focus groups and a survey as part of an organization-wide culture audit and assessment. It also includes input from team member ad-hoc work groups, in which volunteers helped to prioritize the input received during the culture audit and assessment.

The declaration reinforces our aspiration for Connecticut Children’s to be a place where all feel respected, a sense of belonging, and empowered to be their best in service to the organization’s mission and each other. It offers the following six commitments to team members, patient families, and community partners that are designed to foster the respect, belonging and empowerment we seek to establish in our culture:

  • We commit to treating everyone with fairness and equity.
  • We commit to creating a culture where people feel safe to speak up and know their voices are heard.
  • We commit to creating a place where all feel they belong.
  • We commit to creating an environment where all patients and families feel equally welcomed and cared for.
  • We commit to building tools and safe spaces needed to confront and address racism, discrimination and bias.
  • We commit to creating a place where all can fulfill their full potential.

The declaration also outlines the five steps of our journey, which include building from our current state, listening to team members, planning DEI initiatives in our nine prioritized pillars, taking action by executing sustainable DEI initiatives in our prioritized pillars and measuring results to ensure success. Having completed the first two steps of the journey, we are now working on planning our initiatives, taking action and measuring results.

We know that expanding our understanding of a variety of cultures and embracing differences will make us stronger as an organization. As our Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Declaration notes, “by listening to each other, respecting each other, and holding different perspectives in the highest regard, we embrace the opportunity to create sustainable change that will define our future success.”

While we have made tremendous progress so far in strengthening our culture, we look forward to making even more of a meaningful impact regarding diversity, equity and inclusion in the upcoming year and beyond.