Vision
The Boston Children’s Hospital Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences endeavors to establish a supportive, inclusive environment where faculty, trainees, and staff can reach their full professional potential. To this aim, we will advocate for systemic change as needed through implementation of the policies and procedures required to ensure equitable access to professional, developmental, and educational opportunities.
Further, adopting a social determinants of health framework and anti-racist stance, our goal is to address barriers to the provision and accessibility of culturally responsive care for all patients and their families. Through improvements in clinical practice, clinical research and scholarship, advocacy, and training, we will strive to acknowledge and redress the historical contributions of the fields of psychiatry and psychology to structural racism. We do this with awareness of both the historical and current context of structural inequality specific to the greater Boston area and the state of Massachusetts as a whole.
The department is committed to engaging a wide range of voices in the Boston Children's and greater Boston communities to ensure that our vision of a mental health continuum that provides the “right services” in the “right setting” at the “right time” to the “right child” is inclusive of historically underserved communities.
Mission statement
It is important to support this vision with concrete action. The following is a list of short- and long- term goals the committee has identified to keep the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences consistently moving toward greater diversity, equity, and inclusivity.
The department will:
- liaise with the Office of Health Equity and Inclusion to help fulfill the hospital-wide commitment to DEI
- connect with DEI committees in other departments to utilize best practices and align goals and actions with best available resources and knowledge
- increase diversity of department faculty, staff, and trainees, with an emphasis on equitable recruitment, retention, and promotion practices
- incorporate departmental standards around respect, inclusivity, and non-discrimination in orientation and onboarding processes for all department faculty, staff, and trainees
- embed DEI principles in the areas of clinical practice, research, advocacy, and education/training, specifically by:
- ensuring approach is antiracist and intersectional with sensitivity to aspects of identity including but not limited to race/ethnicity, sex, gender identity/expression, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, and disability status
- encouraging department services, programs, and centers to develop individualized DEI goals
- facilitating ongoing diversity and inclusion discussions, training materials, presentations, and tools
- expanding diverse representation in established didactics (e.g. Grand Rounds, Fishbowl Seminar Series)
- respond to DEI concerns from patients, faculty and staff by:
- establishing “safe spaces” for faculty, trainees, and staff to connect, seek support, and problem solve
- creating policies and procedures where concerns and grievances from patients, faculty, and staff can be directed and addressed
- implement quantifiable department DEI metrics and timetables for ongoing assessment of progress toward short- and long-term goals
- advise the department chief regarding new and ongoing DEI needs and initiatives both departmentally and hospital wide