Trinity Youth Services has formed a Diversity, Inclusion, Value and Equity (DIVE) Team made up of voluntary representation at all levels and locations of the organization. The team was formed to provide a platform where voice and choice matter. The team will help guide the agency’s journey to break down barriers to equal access to opportunity and, where historically unheard and/or unseen individuals and groups need additional assistance to achieve equality, the team will create strategies for advancement.
Why DIVE?

Mission

Vision

Goals

• To create an environment in which all individuals feel accepted as their authentic selves, respected by others through language and actions, valued for their ideas and opinions and celebrated for their differences.
• To ensure our campuses, offices and anywhere we carry out the work of the agency, are safe spaces to interact, collaborate and cooperatively carry out the mission of the organization, regardless of our personal opinions, political leanings or ideology.
• To provide equal access and opportunity to everyone and to promote education and advocacy surrounding issues of diversity, inclusion, value and equity.
• To support the children, youth and families we serve with compassion and commitment; by modeling the behaviors we want to see in them.
  

Statement of Intention

Our intention is to incorporate the principles of diversity, inclusion, value and equity into our work at Trinity Youth Services.

We start with ourselves by fostering representational diversity. It is our goal to employ staff who reflect the youth and families we serve. In addition to establishing non-discriminatory and equitable hiring and promotion practices, we also seek to encourage those with “lived experience” with foster care and/or mental health services. We feel the inclusion of different perspectives at every level of our agency: staff, board and volunteers, is critical to our success.

We will model an environment of trust, open communication and collaboration that welcomes new ideas and encourages challenging, civil debate. We believe in constructive dissent as a foundation for innovation and growth.

• Equitable access for those who have historically been excluded or felt unwelcome due to socio-economic constraints, biased or unrepresentative interpretation of policy, historical trauma, language barriers, or any reasons related to discrimination or injustice.
• Representation and advocacy for the full range of stories that make up our collective experience; especially the stories of our youth, their challenges and their successes.
• Authentic long-term partnerships with people, organizations, communities and cultures that have deep relational ties to our youth. We will work with these partners to ensure our youth have the economic, educational and spiritual resources to succeed.
• Influence in the greater community. We will use power and position to be steadfast allies on issues of justice and equity for our staff and the youth and families we serve.

We are committed to ensuring the principles of diversity, inclusion, value and equity are fully integrated in our work. We know fulfilling this commitment will raise challenging questions and involve addressing sensitive subject matter, but we commit to trying.

Determining how these principles are woven into all we do, and how they are communicated to our stakeholders (youth, families, staff, board, volunteers, contracting entities, governing bodies and community) will rarely be simple, but we commit to trying.

We don’t yet know how to perfectly make decisions about how and when to use Trinity resources to address these issues, but we commit to trying.

As issues of equity and justice for our agency, greater community and nation continue to evolve and develop, we believe Trinity can become an even more essential and integral part of the successes of the children and families in our care. We will face these issues collaboratively and with care and hope to grow, individually and collectively. We will grow by identifying and acknowledging areas needing improvement, by seeking remedies and solutions that are meaningful and sustainable, by becoming better listeners and amplifiers of previously unheard voices, and by becoming more educated, informed stewards of the future.

We will seek to be humble, yet bold in this endeavor; to be open without defensiveness. We will surely make mistakes and missteps as we grow, but we will always strive to learn from them.

We hope the commitments in this statement will help to merge our words and actions in ways that will create lasting bonds with others, inspire our staff to learn and grow, and influence and inform how, why and with whom we work to protect and improve the lives of the children we serve.