Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

USBC Working Definition of Equity

Our working definition of equity is compiled from the examples of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Center for Social Inclusion, Collective Impact literature, and others. It views equity as three interwoven components: a lens, a mirror, and an outcome.

It is a lens through which we view the world to inform and guide the design of our strategies and activities to build a "landscape of breastfeeding support."
It is also a mirror through which we view ourselves and our organizations, examining our internal structures, culture, and policies and their impact on how the lens is applied and the outcome achieved.
Lastly it is the outcome we seek to achieve, i.e., equity is realized when life outcomes are equal, in a statistical sense, regardless of one’s identities.

Equity work can take the form of actions designed to address historic burdens as well as to remove present day barriers to equal opportunities. It can be accomplished by identifying and eliminating systemic discriminatory policies and practices, but also by transforming structures towards access, justice, self-determination, redistribution, and sharing of power and resources. Above all, it requires an inclusive approach that maximizes engagement of the communities impacted.

USBC CRASH Committee & Transformation Teams

In August 2013, the USBC Board of Directors formed the CRASH Committee to enhance USBC governance, membership, personnel, and coalitions' ability to build structures, systems, and a culture of inclusiveness and mutual support for all peoples. The committee's name comes from the name of a cultural competency training program for medical professionals. "CRASH" is a mnemonic for the following essential components of culturally competent health care: consider Culture, show Respect, Assess/Affirm differences, show Sensitivity and Self-awareness, and do it all with Humility.

The CRASH Committee has developed a set of recommendations for the USBC in each of its four areas, and is serving as the driver of cultural change within the organization by forging national-level dialogue with an emphasis towards action on diversity, equity, and inclusion. It is working in Transformation Teams to prioritize and implement policy and structural changes in each of its four domains: governance/leadership, membership, staff/personnel, and coalitions.

Racial Equity Webinars

The United States Breastfeeding Committee hosts this series of bi-monthly webinars as part of its efforts to "create and model a culture of inclusion, diversity & equity" (USBC Strategic Framework Goal 4). With funding support from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, this series will focus on building the capacity of the breastfeeding field to apply both an "equity lens" to inform and guide our external strategies and activities, but also an "equity mirror" to examine our internal structures, culture, and policies. Webinars are held every two months (in odd numbered months) on the fourth Tuesday of the month from 2:00-3:30 p.m. ET.

Access Info

Access to these webinars is open to all in the USBC network of member and partner organizations and breastfeeding coalitions. Topic/speaker details are posted 1-2 weeks before each session on this page and in the Racial Equity Learning Community. The recordings and presentation materials from all past sessions are archived below.

Register for the webinar series

NOTE: To streamline access, these webinars are set up in GotoWebinar as a series. You only need to register for the series once, and you will then receive auto-reminders of each session with the topic/speaker details. Even though you may not be able to attend every webinar session live, the series registration will still send you auto-reminders so that you have easy updates on the topic and links to the live webinar and archives.

Join the Racial Equity Online Learning Community

The USBC has been funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation to host this community as part of an inclusive learning and transformation process for the "First Food" field. The community will build the capacity of the breastfeeding field to apply both an "equity lens" to inform and guide our external strategies and activities, but also an "equity mirror" to examine our internal structures, culture, and policies.

Next Webinar

Tuesday, May 28, 2019 • 2:00-3:30 p.m. ET

Important Links:

**Register to access webinar**
Presentation Slides (Coming Soon)
Video Recording (Coming Soon)

Previous Webinar

Tuesday, March 26, 2019 • 2:00-3:30 p.m. ET

Important Links:

Securing Your Own Mask Before Helping Others: Confronting Implicit Bias within Ourselves

Presented by:

Felisha Floyd, Board Chair of NAPPLSC

You know you’ve done it, ignored the flight attendant’s safety instructions before liftoff. You ignore the advice they give you on using the oxygen mask. You might miss the instructions explaining that you should first always secure your mask before helping others during an emergency. Without your mask, if the plane is losing oxygen, you’re going to be too weak and disoriented to help anyone else. Implicit bias influences one’s thoughts and actions, just like your mask on the plane. Support professionals selflessly serve others without addressing our own needs first. The lack of personal awareness of implicit bias can make our attempts to be helpful more likely to cause harm, rather than improving the situation. This concept can be applied to many contentious topics in today’s society, including and importantly how support professionals deal with racism. Researchers have found that the more we ignore and disguise our racial biases, the more likely we are to perpetuate them. This presentation will address how structural racism is held up by both explicit and implicit bias. You will discover how structural racism is a system that we all inherited, and why it is now our responsibility to change it. You will learn how to perform a critical self-assessment of ourselves to identify some of your implicit biases. This discovery can help you help yourself, help others and you will be able to use these same tools to dismantle the system of structural racism.

Webinar Archives

To search the archives by keyword, speaker name, and more, visit the file library in the Racial Equity Learning Community.