Town Of Arlington: Town Participates In Race, Equity And Leadership Training

Press release from Town of Arlington:

05/07/2021

Town staff who participated in the first National League of Cities Race, Equity and Leadership, (REAL) Trainings, took part in the second set of training the last week of April. The first stage of the training is normalizing the discussion about racial equity. The second stage is setting up to operationalize. Employees learned how to use a racial equity tool to apply to policies and procedures as the Town continues to dive into its equity work.

"I am so pleased that we are now moving from education to action in regard to efforts to identify and eradicate instances of institutional racism in Town government", said Adam Chapdelaine, Town Manager. "We are still at the beginning of a long journey of identifying and eliminating inequities, but the engagement by staff across all departments provides hope that we can accomplish our goal of making the Town, as an organization, a truly anti-racist entity.”

Small breakout groups were tasked with using the racial equity tool to practice real policy and procedural issues within the Town. Town employees continue to utilize the tool to gain the skills needed to properly apply an equity lens to the work they do.

“Being able to work with folks across different departments in the breakout room, to hone in on one very specific issue we all had an interest in fixing and applying the racial equity tool to, was truly energizing,” said Jillian Harvey, Arlington’s Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. “You could feel the communal desire to solve the problem, while gaining a better understanding of the extent to which racial inequities can be found in almost everything. I felt that this training in particular gave us the momentum we needed to start to dive deeper into the work.”

You may learn more about Arlington’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Division, including viewing Harvey’s monthly video updates, which talks at greater length about this initiative, at arlingtonma.gov/dei

This press release was produced by Town of Arlington. The views expressed here are the author’s own.