Centers of Excellence strive to create an environment that fully supports and promotes equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) across all facets of agency work.  Examples of these activities may include:

• Recruitment and retention practices that work to build a more diverse employee base as evidenced by varied and diverse recruitment practices to build an employee base that better represents the community
• An agency mission, policy and/or strategic priority that is publicly available that sites a commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion practices and learning*
• EDI training upon hire and at least annually *
• Supervision includes a component that promotes awareness of and exploration of equity, diversity and inclusion and its impact upon:
  • Employee performance and engagement in their work as well as in dynamics of power
  • Clinical work and support services through clear supervision notes exploring the concepts of EDI and their impact upon the work
• Agency has created attainable benchmarks based upon agency priorities that support EDI that are in annual plans and that are shared with staff, the board, and with the community
• The agency has an active (meets at least monthly) EDI committee that guides all EDI activities*
• Agency provides evidence that EDI activities are pervasive across agency activities and can demonstrate this across all program areas and activities
• Agency is involved in continuous training and self-reflective activities exploring the impact of systemic racism, with a focus on learning and changing as an organization
• Agency surveys agency around staff experience of fair and equitable treatment
• Agency shows evidence of ongoing activities that work towards the above bullets and more with awareness that this process is iterative as the agency learns more about EDI*
• Other activities agencies have engaged in that have emerged as best practice in this area since the publishing of this manual.

0 – Criteria not met (Agency does not provide examples, policies, or procedures that support activity in EDI)

1 – Criteria partially met (Agency provides evidence of all highlighted items* in the above list)

2 – Criteria met (Agency provides evidence of the highlighted items* in the above list along with additional evidence of 3 of the remaining activities.