Speaker
Description
Scarborough, where 73% of residents identify as visible minorities and 60% are foreign born, is one of Canada’s most diverse communities. This is reflected in SHN’s patient and staff populations. Our 2023 employee engagement survey showed 77% of employees self-identified as racialized and 40% were born outside of Canada. We celebrate the diversity of our workplace with the recruitment tagline, “Where the World Comes to Work”.
In 2022, Scarborough Health Network approved a multi-year, corporate Equity, Diversity and Inclusion strategy with four key pillars: Creating a Sense of Belonging, Education and Awareness, Data Collection and Monitoring and Service Delivery. The pillars are centered around our foundational principles of Anti-Oppression, Anti-Racism, Indigenous Cultural Safety and Intersectionality. The initiatives stemming from our strategy include an annual ‘inclusion calendar’, regular EDI education offerings that help build cultural competence; a 9-month Health Equity Certificate Program, ‘Communities of Inclusion’ that create safe spaces for staff with shared identities for skill sharing, networking and mentorship a full-time Indigenous Patient Navigator and more.
Our RNAO session will provide a high-level overview of our EDI strategy and initiatives with a spotlight on a recent program aimed at improving the retention and engagement of our internationally educated nurses (IENs). SHN’s three-pronged IEN retention initiative includes:
• training for leaders of teams that include IENs
• 24 hours of specialized training delivered in partnership with a private college and designed to facilitate workplace integration and enhance professional competencies in the Canadian healthcare context; topics were validated in advance in a focus group of 10 IENs
• creation of a Community of Inclusion for IENs for peer support and mentorship.
We will share our experience implementing this 3-part program including achievements, lessons learned and the evaluation findings from the first cohort of 24 IENs to complete the specialized workplace integration training.
Keywords
retention and engagement of internationally trained nurses, anti-oppression, anti-racism, indigenous cultural safety, intersectionality, communities of inclusion, excellence in service delivery
Author(s) Credentials and Title
Michele James, Executive Vice President of People and Transformation, SHN.
Minette MacNeil, Director of Professional Practice and Allied Health, SHN
Efosa Osawe, Clinical Practice Leader, SHN.
What RNAO BPG or tool/toolkit is this work related to:
Embracing Cultural Diversity in Health Care: Developing Cultural Competence BPG
| Organization Name | Scarborough Health Network |
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