QHS EDIIA Action Plan

Dean’s Action Table on Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Working Groups

• 7 Working Groups
• 9 Pillars
• 25 Goals
• 127 Actions

Seven (7) Working Groups (with 160+ members)

1. Outreach and Summer Program
2. EDI for Admissions
3. EDI Curriculum Across the QHS
4. Recruitment, Retention, and Mentorship
5. Professional Development
6. Research and EDI
7. Culture and Community

Working Groups mandate

• Conduct an environmental scan of existing activities and examine best practices to develop recommendations and metrics for the QHS EDIIA Strategic Plans.
• Work from September 2020 until September 2022.

Pillar 1: Outreach and Summer Program

Goal 1: Deliver the QHS Outreach and Summer Program to support and mentor high school students in the Kingston and surrounding area

Actions

1. Provide mentorship and workshop delivery to participants via in-kind sup- port from QHS Schools, Departments, and Programs.
2. Provide mentorship to program participants from QHS learners, staff, and faculty.
3. Operationalize an Advisory Committee to provide program oversight.
4. Evaluate QHSOSP annually to assess the program’s effectiveness and implementation.
5. Build and maintain community partnerships across Kingston and the surrounding area to identify program participants.

Goal 2: Commit to sustaining and developing QHS outreach programming long term through partnerships that support targeted recruitment

Actions

1. Identify funding opportunities to employ a Program Student Coordinator.
2. Identify funding to provide Scholarship/ Educational Stipend opportunities to high school students.
3. Identify funding to support QHSOSP programming (e.g. delivery of work- shops, summer program).
4. Deliver statement of commitment by QHS leadership to sustain the QHSOSP long term.
5. Target recruitment of low socio- economic status, Indigenous, Black, racialized, 2SLGBTQIA+, students living with disabilities, amongst others within Kingston and surrounding area as well as building the geographical reach.
6. Track number of high school students in QHS outreach programming who applied and were admitted to a post secondary program.

Pillar 2: Admissions

Goal 3: Minimize systemic barriers faced by applicants through equitable and inclusive admission and transition processes

Actions

Separate Admission Streams

1. Implement a Black Student Application Process (BSAP).
2. Evaluate existing streams including the Indigenous Student Pathway and First-Generation Pathway.
3. Continue to identify opportunities for admission streams for other equity-deserving groups.

Reserved Seats

1. Continue to evaluate reserved seats in the Indigenous Student Pathway and in QuARMS.
2. Create dialogue at QHS to recognize discrimination and minimize stigma and biases faced by students admit- ted through reserved seats.

Transitional Programs

1. Continue to evaluate STEM: Indigenous Academics (STEM:InA).
2. Identify opportunities for similar transitional programs for other equity-deserving groups.

Mentorship and Outreach Programs & Admissions Workshops

1. Compile and publish a list of existing mentorship and outreach programs and admissions workshops for appli- cants at QHS and highlight those for equity-deserving groups.
2. Identify opportunities for new mentorship and outreach programs and admissions workshops for equity-deserving groups.

Financial Assistance

1. Compile and publish a list of existing scholarships and bursaries for applicants at QHS with a focus on equity-deserving groups and/or with consideration of financial need.
2. Implement an application fee subsidy program for applicants in financial need.
3. Re-evaluate existing scholarships and bursaries to include a focus on equity-deserving groups and/or consideration of financial need.
4. Promote opportunities for donors to establish new scholarships and bursaries for equity-deserving groups and/or applicants in financial need.

Holistic Review of Applications

1. Re-evaluate existing admissions criteria to determine if a holistic approach is used in the review of applications.
2. Consider increasing the weighting of non-cognitive components , such as extracurricular activities, personal statements/essays, letters of reference, situational judgment tests (CASPer), and multiple mini interviews (MMI).
3. Consider lowering cut-offs for cognitive components, such as GPA and MCAT.
4. Publish more transparent admissions criteria and cut-offs on program websites.

Goal 4: Dismantle discrimination and biases faced by applicants through equitable and inclusive selection processes

Actions

Diverse Admission Reviewers

1. Invite and compensate students, staff, faculty, alumni, and community members of diverse and intersecting backgrounds to be file reviewers, interviewers, and admissions commit- tee members.
2. Continuously involve new members to gain fresh perspectives and reduce the minority tax.

Equity Training

1. Develop an equity training module specific to admissions.
2. Mandate the equity training module for all file reviewers, interviewers, and admissions committee members.

Disclosure and Feedback

1. Develop and implement a tool for applicants, current students, staff, and faculty to disclose experienced or witnessed discrimination or bias by file reviewers, interviewers, and admissions committee members.
2. Implement a framework for providing feedback from any disclosures to file reviewers, interviewers, and admis- sions committee members.

Goal 5: Advance equity-oriented data collection, stewardship, and reporting across QHS

Actions

Tracking and Analyzing Admissions Data

1. Track, analyze, and report admissions data with respect to applicant demo- graphics (race, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, socioeconomic status, first-generation status, urban/ rural) throughout the application process.
2. Identify opportunities for targeted admissions initiatives based on the admissions data.
3. Publish admissions data on program websites.

Goal 6: Improve transparency through public communication regarding QHS EDIIA initiatives

Actions

Commitment to EDIIA in Admissions

1. Publish a statement of commitment to EDIIA in Admissions on program websites.
2. Promote EDI-focused admissions interventions on program websites.
3. Create dialogue at QHS to recognize discrimination and minimize stigma and biases faced by students admit- ted with the help of EDI-focused admissions interventions.

Pillar 3: Recruitment

Goal 7: Enhance resources and opportunities afforded to prospective equity-deserving learners

Actions

Learner Recruitment

1. Establish and execute a one-day conference at QHS for Grade 12 equity-deserving students across Canada to learn about the field of health sciences and diverse professions.
2. Create a comprehensive welcome package for each QHS education program that is distributed via email to students upon acceptance into a QHS program.
3. Develop a tracking and reporting tool to actively seek and target the recruitment of learners from equity deserving groups into paid faculty roles or encourage higher education through scholarship opportunities.

Goal 8: Improve QHS staff and faculty hiring policies and processes to enhance representation

Actions

Staff Recruitment

1. Implement a consistent process for QHS hiring panels/committees informed by the following EDIIA principles:
   • Diverse Representation on all Hiring Panels with an aim to work and track diverse composition on all hiring committees.
   • EDIIA training for all individuals on a hiring committee.
   • Inclusive and Fair Hiring Practices by placing great value on the EE representative.
   • Use of updated equity language and clear guidance for human resource activities by adopting the EDI style guide in the drafting of interview questions, and any communication tools.
   • Mandate general and scenario- based EDIIA interview questions in all interviews.
   • Create opportunities for members of hiring panels to call out biases, stereotypes, and microaggressions.
2. Implement consistent recruitment processes informed by the following EDIIA principles:
   • Development of a diverse bank of job advertisements sites to support units/departments advertising new jobs.
   • Stronger emphasis on external postings.
   • Advertise opportunities for growth, professional development and staff support.
   • Target recruitment to equity- deserving prospective staff.
   • Strong QHS EDIIA statements in job advertisements to demonstrate organizational commitment to creating more equitable and inclusive spaces.
   • Use of updated equity language and clear guidance for human resources by adopting the EDI style guide in the drafting of job descriptions and any communication tools.
   • Place stronger emphasis on abilities vs. experience.
   • Statement and commitment to support staff with families and dependents.
   • Create opportunities to support staff with families and dependents.
   • Make all aspects of the interview process accessible to candidate.
   • Provide unsuccessful candidate with feedback.

Faculty Recruitment

1. Ensure that each department identifies the extent of which equity seeking groups are (under)represented within their unit.
2. Establish a comprehensive strategy for faculty recruitment informed by EDIIA principles.
3. Model equity, diversity, and inclusive practices in all stages of the recruitment process.
4. Establish a suitably staffed office tasked with surveillance of recruitment practices across the faculty of health sciences.

Pillar 4: Retention

Goal 9: Improve equity-deserving learner retention rates in QHS

Actions

Learner Retention

1. Increase opportunities for equity- deserving learners to engage within the academic and non-academic community at Queen’s Health Sciences.
2. Circulate an annual survey allowing learners to report sense of belonging, areas of improvement, and anonymous/ confidential reports of incidents of harassment or discrimination.
3. Define a framework to increase retention of Highly Qualified Personnel (HQPs) and strategy to raise capital for retaining research personnel who are former QHS learners.

Goal 10: Create a culturally safe and respectful workplace for all QHS employees

Actions

Staff Retention

1. Enforce exit survey and data collection system for all staff roles at QHS to inform future strategies.
2. Provide career advancement opportunities for staff.
3. Provide accessible resources and policies regarding professional burnout or burnout prevention.
4. Mandate higher education focused unconscious bias training for all QHS staff members, including staff lead- ership, as part of annual professional development processes.
5. Ensure awareness and use (as needed) of Queen's harassment and discrimi- nation reporting and repsonse.

Goal 11: Implement equitable and inclusive policies and practices to increase staff and faculty retention

Actions

Faculty Retention

1. Enforce exit survey and data collection system for all faculty roles at QHS to inform future strategies.
2. Create an EDIIA and trauma-informed framework to be used in meetings that are meant to retain Queen’s Faculty.
3. Create supports to openly discuss and prevent burnout across QHS faculty.
4. Increase faculty engagement and retention by creating a culture that recognizes small contributions, skills, strengths, compassion, care, and expressing genuine thanks.
5. Promote a growth and change mind- set within academic departments/ programs/units and on decision- making committees across QHS.

Pillar 5: Mentorship

Goal 12: Formalize mentorship opportunities for QHS learners and create formal mentorship frameworks between learners and faculty

Actions

Learner Mentorship Opportunities

1. Develop formal mentorship opportuni- ties for all QHS learner programs with learner, staff, and faculty mentors. Prioritize diversity and equity-related matters.
2. Promote current mentorship opportu- nities available for QHS learners.
3. Implement a real-time mentee/mentor feedback survey to track progress of these opportunities and to identify areas of improvement for each mentorship encounter.
4. Develop an education module about mentoring in academia, including EDIIA context-specific content.
5. Create an online QHS mentorship ‘hub’, as a unified central location for all QHS parties, which provides educational information, networking opportunities, and events and activi- ties that implement an internal quality improvement process.
6. Ensure ongoing dialogue with clinical/ work experience partners about QHS EDIIA actions and strategies for improved mentorship within these environments for learners.
7. Develop a standardized, mandatory interview template for mentors to use when seeking mentees, especially for graduate and research based mentorship.
8. Set expectations during the first meeting within mentorship relation- ships to set out compassionate ways to foster communication and enhance commitment, especially for graduate and research based mentorship.
9. Provide protected time for mentorship for learners, staff, and faculty for quality driven relationships to flourish.
10. Define unacceptable behaviors and attitudes of faculty and staff toward learners and implement a zero-tolerance framework by engaging in the following:
    • In collaboration with the Queen’s Secretariat Office, develop a zero-tolerance framework.
    • Create a mechanism (5-person independent committee external to Queen's) to enforce a zero- tolerance framework.
    • Set tangible long-lasting consequences for behaviors that violate the zero-tolerance policy framework.
11. Create and implement an updated standard for learner-staff/faculty supervision that involves mandatory supervision training.
12. Establish a Committee composed of representatives of all QHS stake- holders (including alumni) to oversee matters related to recruitment, retention, and mentorship policies and processes.

Goal 13: Build mentorship resources for faculty to strengthen mentorship relationships that foster positive and safe experiences

Actions

Faculty-Faculty Mentorship

1. Ensure faculty are engaging uncon- scious bias training to build awareness and foster a sense of belonging.
2. Engage and collaborate with the Faculty and Staff Recruitment, Retention and Support (FSRRS) and/or University Council on Anti- Racism and Equity (UCARE) initiative in developing mentorship programs for equity-deserving faculty.
3. Create resources for equity-deserving faculty that includes Employee Resource Groups (ERGs), Queen’s associations, and community associations to edu- cate faculty mentors on community networks and resources that could support a sense of belonging.

Goal 14: Assemble and sustain mentorship opportunities for interprofessional staff and faculty mentorship

Actions

Staff-Faculty Mentorship

1. Create avenues for staff to enter into faculty positions.
2. Engage faculty members on respecting and valuing the role of staff members.
   • Statements from leadership on respecting and valuing staff to foster a culture of mutual respect.
   • Recognize contributions of both faculty and staff equally.
   • Create opportunities for a common purpose.
   • Inclusion of staff in decision making processes.
3. Leadership reports incidences of harassment and discrimination between staff/staff and staff/faculty via Queen's Harassment and Discrimination Police.
4. Provide staff positions with increased protected time to engage in academic activities (e.g. teaching and research) and university service.
5. Develop more inclusive and collabora- tive opportunities for staff and faculty.
   • Drawing on staff expertise in academic work (e.g. research and teaching).
6. Develop leadership staff roles that historically are filled by faculty members (e.g. decanal positions).

Pillar 6: Curriculum

Goal 15: Adapt and implement the QHS Inclusive Curriculum Model

Actions

1. Form an Advisory Committee to guide the implementation of the Inclusive Curriculum model, composed of:
   • EDI Curriculum across QHS working group members.
   • QHS curriculum leadership and learners.
   • Community/Patient representation.
2. Pilot the QHS Inclusive Curriculum Model:
   • Identify one (1) clinical program and one (1) non-clinical program to pilot the model.
   • Each program should develop their own working group to oversee the piloting phase.
3. Recruit within QHS to support programs with the implementation of the model:
   • Background in Indigenous methodologies, educational knowledge, and health sciences and health care system.
4. Adopt existing resources supporting the Inclusive Curriculum model:
   • EDIIA Glossary of term.
   • Environmental Scan Report.
   • EDIIA Literature Review.
   • EDIIA Studentship Report.
5. Create new resources to support model:
   • Bank or resource on how to apply each principle in the Inclusive Curriculum Model.
   • Collection of student and patient and community members stories/ narratives (to be used as case studies).
6. Integrate Inclusive Curriculum Model by auditing and using existing processes and tools (QCAP process and DEAP tool).

Goal 16: Advance an EDIIA interprofessional approach to QHS curriculum

Actions

1. Implement the Inclusive Curriculum Model for Interprofessional EDIIA learning opportunities (e.g. courses, grand round sessions, workshops).

Pillar 7: Professional Development

Goal 17: Develop infrastructure to formalize QHS EDIIA-related professional development

Actions

1. Appoint a task-focused, time limited Professional Development working group comprised of leaders with posi- tional and network power to oversee implementation of recommendations.
2. Create a net-ID accessed Professional Development Dashboard to better track and incentivize PD participation.
3. Provide learners, staff, and faculty with protected time to engage in EDIIA-related professional develop- ment as an expected part of their role.
4. Use regularly scheduled events— including grand rounds, department meetings, seminar series, annual retreats etc.—to advance EDIIA- related professional development .

Goal 18: Identify QHS mentors/allies to support EDIIA-focused professional development

Actions

1. Identify interprofessional mentors/allies who support staff and faculty with EDIIA professional development.
2. Train mentors/allies to ensure they have knowledge of available resources and opportunities and are equipped to be in supportive role.

Goal 19: Build, integrate, and ensure the uptake of mandatory and evidence-based EDIIA training in QHS

Actions

1. Identify strategies to improve participation rates in mandatory training.
2. Create net ID-accessed Professional Development dashboard to better track completion rates and incentivize participation.
3. Review current mandatory training with eye to best practices.

Goal 20: Ensure QHS EDIIA-related professional development programming is based on evidence-based

Actions

1. Use regular cyclical review to ensure EDIIA-related professional development programming is:
   • Longitudinal, rather than one-off.
   • Conceived and delivered interprofessionally.
   • Delivered in small groups, with attention to representation of equity deserving folks.
   • Designed to integrate and reflect life experience through case studies, role-plays, scenarios or simulations.
   • Focused on practical and imple- mentable strategies, and how to put them into practice.
2. Develop a resource bank of case studies/scenarios, drawn from QHS learners, staff, faculty to provide material for programming
3. Increase opportunities for synchronous/ live training.

Pillar 8: Research

Goal 21: Provide QHS researchers with the infrastructure and resources to engage with EDIIA principles and practices in their research

Actions

1. Work with Queen’s Ethics Office to provide EDIIA-related resources via the Queen's TRAQ system.
2. Create opportunities for QHS researchers to consult with EDIIA experts on how to integrate EDIIA related principles and practices into their health science research.
3. Develop a concise EDIIA health science research toolkit/guide that provides a framework on the research life span that is adopted by all QHS research centres and groups. The toolkit engages an intersectional lens and identifies gaps in knowledge.
4. Develop examples, case studies, and approaches on how to apply EDIAA principles in research.
5. Create a resource bank/listserv of EDIIA-related research training or pro- fessional development opportunities.
6. Promote existing EDIIA related research training for QHS members.
7. Develop a data analysis resource guide to ensure proper representation and evaluation of patient/community participants.
8. Ensure QHS Research Office/Vice Dean, Research encourages research- ers to consider the integration of EDIIA throughout every stage of the research process.

Goal 22: Increase QHS research funding that values EDIIA-informed research

Actions

1. Identify ways for internal funding to prioritize EDIIA related research.
2. Determine how QHS internal research grants can integrate the evaluation of EDIIA principles and practices.
3. Ensure a continuation of EDIIA studentships.

Goal 23: Track and communicate QHS EDIIA research and representation in research activities

Actions

1. Have QHS Research centres track diverse representation in all areas of research activities:
   • Research grant committees.
   • Research advisory committees.
   • Research teams (students, staff, faculty, etc.).
   • Review of peer-reviewed article.
   • Research participants.
   • Research/Hospital ethics.
2. Identify opportunities to celebrate the current complement of QHS researchers engaging EDIIA principles and practices.

Pillar 9: Culture and Community

Goal 24: Prioritize an equitable and inclusive cultural shift across QHS

Actions

1. Adopt DEAP tool to track progress of meeting DAT-EDI recommendations.
2. Ensure adequate staffing/resources for EDIIA Office to operationalize Champion Program. Ensure enough support for EDIIA Programming staff and Associate Dean, Equity and Social Accountability to be able to run the QHS EDIIA Programming activities effectively.
3. Ensure larger staffing budget for QHS EDIIA Programming to match the stra- tegic importance of the deliverables of the committee.
4. Implement cross-collaborative and goal setting meetings between KHSC, PC, and QHS so there is shared EDIIA awareness, EDIIA resources, and EDIIA training across all organizations. Cross-organizational collaboration helps to ensure that the Champion program is supported and sustained.

Goal 25: Ensure the collaborative implementation and sustainability of the QHS Champion Program

Actions

1. Implement the QHS Champion Program composed of EDIIA leads and committees across QHS departments/programs/units.
2. Use OnQ for a repository of program resources.
3. Ensure access to funding (e.g. protected time) to support guest speakers/ content experts to provide compensa- tion for education. Ensure we do not disadvantage less-financially solvent departments or ask people to educate us for free.
4. Provide champions with access to Queens HREO/OPDES EDIIA training.
5. Identify ways to recognize student involvement in champion program (e.g. funding, service learning).
6. Form a Champion advisory committee to oversee the strategic operation of the champion program and ensure accountability of implementing DAT-EDI recommendations. The committee will help to support QHS Programs/ Departments in their implementation of DAT-EDI Recommendations. Ensur- ing proper representation of learners, staff, faculty, and across all three schools (SOM [clinical and non-clinical programs], SON, SRT) and diverse rep- resentation on the advisory committee.
7. Administrative support of 0.1 FTE (minimum) to 0.5 FTE (maximum) in Department budgets (consider cost sharing strategies across departments) to help oversee the implementation of DAT-EDI recommendations through the use of the DEAP tool.