WriteGirl Action Plan Update
/From its start, nearly 20 years ago, it has been our mission to support the unheard voices of teens, and inspire writers to become mentors. We have definitely evolved since our first workshops at the Bresee Community Center in Koreatown with just 30 girls. We’ve always aimed for WriteGirl to be a leader and trailblazer in the field of creative education for young people.
WriteGirl continues to evolve in response to the needs of our teens, volunteers, parents and staff, and in June we recognized that while we have worked for nearly two decades to make our organization inclusive and diverse, we also recognize the need to prioritize anti-racism and work harder to embed equity in all aspects of our organization. We are passionate about immersing ourselves in a range of initiatives to strengthen the positive impact WriteGirl has in the lives of hundreds of teens each year, and we are grateful for dozens of volunteers who have stepped forward to contribute.
On June 20th, we released a Commitment and Action Plan in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement and anti-racism. We see this as a starting point, and guiding document as we go forward, and we know it will evolve further. We have been diligently working on aspects of the plan and have formed an Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Access Committee to help guide us as we enter our 20th anniversary season. While some of these changes have been underway for years, we have re-committed to prioritizing these efforts, in collaboration with our new Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Access Committee.
Though we recognize that this is only the beginning, we would like to share some of the progress we’ve made in recent months regarding the specific items in our Action Plan:
UPDATE: We have contracted with a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion specialist to help guide us in best practices for the formation and processes of a new Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility Committee (IDEA committee). The committee is currently comprised of WriteGirl staff, volunteers and alumnae. The IDEA steering group began meeting regularly at the end of June, and the full committee began meeting earlier this month.
The committee will be working collaboratively with the WriteGirl staff and board to analyze and improve systems and processes, including how we recruit and train volunteers, which positions are held by paid staff, the tenets of our college program, and how we can address knowledge gaps in our existing volunteers. The committee will also set relevant quantitative or qualitative goals that will help our organization track progress along the way.
ACTION PLAN ITEM: We are forming a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion committee comprised of stakeholders within our community, including teens, alums, parents, staff, board, and volunteers to advise and support WriteGirl / Bold Ink Writers. The team's focus will be to develop representation standards and target metrics for staff and volunteers so that our own organization reflects the diversity of those we serve. Committee membership will be centered on the voices of BIPOC, LGBTQIA, differently abled, and others who are part of the community we serve.
UPDATE: All staff members have been engaged in a variety of workshops and professional development training in June, July and August 2020 so that we have more tools to guide us in our understanding and decision-making on inclusion, equity and racial justice.
Several members of staff leadership have participated in anti-racism courses specifically designed for nonprofit leaders.
The entire WriteGirl staff will be engaged in a racial justice and equity training in September.
ACTION PLAN ITEM: We are investing in significant anti-racism training immediately for all current staff, as well as offering paid time for all staff to read, learn and share.
UPDATE: Under the guidance of outside consultants, we have begun revising many internal staff systems such as our staff meetings, systems and communications, and we’ve had many complex and difficult conversations in these past months to help strengthen our team. As a result of these conversations, we are in the process of revising our recruiting, hiring, training and onboarding processes, for both new positions and current employees, to ensure our current and future staff is conscious of how the status quo impacts marginalized people, and how our approach can align to the larger goal of dismantling institutional bias.
ACTION PLAN ITEM: With only two people of color on a staff of nine currently (combined full-time and part-time staff), we know we can do better, and as we grow our staff and leadership, we are working with an outside consultant to embark on an internal review of our recruitment, onboarding, professional development, management practices, employee review processes and overall systems of internal and external communication to improve our workplace structure, environment and culture.
UPDATE: In our WriteGirl In-Schools and Bold Ink Writers programs, we have worked for years to refine our curriculum to make it more relevant and effective for the youth we serve, and in June, we began making additional significant changes to both who is leading those workshops as well as the curriculum design.
In March, we adapted all of our programs to a completely online format, sometimes even just by telephone in the case of two incarceration facilities. For this reason, it is even more important that our workshop leaders have strong backgrounds as writers and communicators with adequate training in trauma-informed and healing-informed arts education approaches, as well as life and cultural experiences and backgrounds that reflect the population we are serving.
Several months ago, we promoted Andrea Ohlsen-Esparza to the position of Bold Ink Writers Coordinator, to help guide the programming and staffing in this program area. For current teaching artists, we have expanded pre- and post-workshop training and discussions to help prepare them for the specific curriculum and youth groups we are working with. Well-trained and qualified BIPOC writers now comprise a majority of the current staff for these programs, and we continue to examine all ways we can strengthen program staff and program content and delivery. We continue to hone the curriculum for these programs, incorporating social justice themes within a multi-disciplinary approach.
ACTION PLAN ITEM: We commit to seeking more people of color to join our team of mentors/teaching artists in our programs for incarcerated and systems-impacted youth. We commit to seeking additional financial support for this critical division of our organization dedicated to youth who have experienced significant trauma, to help elevate the efforts of our mentors/teaching artists in leading youth workshops and building relationships with probation staff.
UPDATE: We have created and distributed materials to our mentors that offer additional tools, resources and insights around issues related to quarantine and social justice. Our IDEA Committee is currently working on additional tools and training resources to extend to our new and returning volunteer mentors as we enter our 20th season.
ACTION PLAN ITEM: We also see the need to usher our valued group of 400 current volunteers to come alongside us in this anti-racism work, as well as the 60 special guest presenters/mentors annually who we invite to join us at events and workshops. We are equipping all our mentors with current additional tools, including a new Mentoring Handbook, to be effective mentors to our teens who are currently grappling with quarantine, COVID-19, trauma surrounding police brutality, the murders of Rayshard Brooks, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, the hangings of Black men in our own extended Southern California community and, in utter sadness, much more than we can list here.
UPDATE: Over the last six months, all of our staff have contributed to a social justice reference library that includes numerous resources including books, movies, links to reusable resources, access to social justice thought-leaders, videos and more. As our next season begins, our IDEA Committee and our curriculum leads will be vetting, selecting, and curating the materials that are suitable and relevant to the work we do, so that our volunteers receive the training and development they need to support teens.
ACTION PLAN ITEM: We are developing additional tools to help our volunteers understand the language and goals of anti-racism, deepen their skills for listening, and much more, to ensure that they are as prepared as possible to support teens in developing their writing and communication skills through healing-informed engagement and a holistic approach that is at the heart of our work.
UPDATE: We’ve held multiple listening sessions with our teens and alums to give them opportunities to share what they are experiencing right now with our entire community on hand to support them. We’ve created new digital booklets for our teens with tools, opportunities and resources. We invited several BIPOC writers, leaders and executives who understand our mission and the teens we serve to join us at these events to share inspiration and lead discussions. We are also gathering and distributing (as requested) a list of resources for community members (including mentees) related to the economic fallout from both the COVID-19 pandemic and the current climate of police violence and protest. These resources include referrals to legal assistance, information about Los Angeles-area regulations and assistance related to evictions, information about how to access economic benefits and contact information for other organizations providing this critical support.
ACTION PLAN ITEM: We will also expand our support for the mental, physical and social well-being of our entire community, by providing resources, more listening sessions and self-care education. The impact of systemic racism, violence against people of color, social media bullying and harassment, misogyny and violence against women and the LGBTQIA community and more, creates great pain and suffering. We can and we will do more in our effort to give teens and our staff and volunteers more opportunities, tools and resources for healing and support.
UPDATE: We have always spotlighted diverse voices in our curriculum and on social media, but in June we began to center even more on Black authors and creators as well as Black-owned bookstores and businesses. We will continue to post about the work of BIPOC writers, including our own authors, amongst other initiatives to continue to center and amplify BIPOC and other marginalized writers and entities.
ACTION PLAN ITEM: We will continue to use our social media platforms to engage the broader community in our mission of uplifting the voices of teens, as well as highlight Black voices, Black-owned businesses, Black writers, BIPOC books/podcasts/shows, Anti-Racist leaders, and much more.
UPDATE: With the help of our IDEA Committee and consultants, we continue to seek additional areas where we can bring BIPOC and LGBTQIA voices to the forefront, including working with some of our alums to involve them as leaders and co-hosts at our online workshops. We are also adapting some of our traditional program offerings into both the online space due to COVID-19, and into the current movement that our community members are experiencing. For example, we were not able to host our annual internship program this summer, but we made significant efforts on an individual basis to help mentees and alums secure internships with other organizations, apply for and/or secure employment, and connect with members of our community and beyond to help them frame out Gap Year projects, including serving as accountability partners to make sure they achieve their goals prior to starting college.
ACTION PLAN ITEM: We see this as just the beginning. We realize that much more needs to go into this plan and into this work. We commit to refining, expanding and keeping this action plan front and center as we move forward.
