Center For Family Services is committed to incorporating multi-cultural principles and practices throughout our continuum of care. The agency strives to provide programs and services that are linguistically appropriate, culturally relevant, and sensitive. Center For Family Services’ guiding principle is “To honor diversity and to provide services with awareness of and sensitivity to the strengths and skills of diverse ethnicities and cultures, languages, socio- economic classes, disabilities, religions, genders, and sexual orientations” (Center For Family Services, Goals & Values). Center For Family Services respects the dignity of each individual. Through collaborative and culturally responsive service delivery, individuals and families are honored as experts in their own lives.
Our Commitment to Intercultural Competence
The Intercultural Competency Committee is an effort by the Center For Family Services to make everyone who comes into contact with our agency—as a client, employee, staff member, volunteer, or community partner—feel welcomed, comfortable and respected.
This effort is informed by the understanding that everybody comes from a unique background and has a unique way of understanding the world. This includes:
- A value system that defines what is important, what is not; what acceptable behavior is, and what is not.
- A commitment to equity and social justice.
- Ways of communicating—both with words and with body language—including ways of managing and expressing emotions and respect.
- Ways of understanding and receiving information presented by others, both with word and body language.
- Physical spaces in which we feel comfortable and spaces that make us feel out of our element and uncomfortable.
When we interact with the agency and with each other, we bring that background and understanding with us. It is impossible to ever leave behind these pieces of ourselves, and not desirable to do so. Instead, we should work to understand that they inform how we interact with other people, and use that to also understand how other people perceive us and how they would like to interact with us.
The agency has a committee devoted to improving our inter-cultural competence. The committee will do the following things:
- Embrace the value of intercultural competence and the commitment to a diverse team
- Stand up against all racism and bias
- Promote intercultural competence to achieve quality outcomes
- Collect and analyze demographic data at the agency level to assess and determine if services are representative of the population served
- Provide training and development in intercultural competence for all staff
- Evaluate services in terms of access, retention and engagement and service quality by key consumer demographics and cultural relevance
- Ensure equitable responses to all stakeholders, including their staff, communities and the individuals and families served in the face of an emergency.
- Use trainings and other means to make the Center For Family Services the kind of place where conversations about values and difference are respectful, comfortable, and frequent.
- Design and ensure the agency environments are inclusive and respectful.
- Listen to, and take seriously, concerns of staff and clients who feel that their values and belief systems are not being respected.
Lunch & Learns are professional development opportunities designed to support your cultural competency. You are encouraged to attend the sessions as a listening and learning opportunity to enhance your professional growth.
Autism Acceptance Month Lunch & Learn
Join the ICC for Inclusive Minds: A Nuerodiversity 101 Workshop on April 17 from 12-1:15 as we reflect upon and expand our current understanding of neurodiversity. Participants will learn key terms associated with neurodiversity, while practicing a language shift from labeling towards understanding and neurodivergent brains. We will touch on accommodations for supporting neurodivergent kids and adults, guided by questions and open discussion, to meet specific needs of the group.
Watch past Lunch & Learns
Lunch & Learn Topic: LGBTQ+ History & Creating Affirming Environments
Live Session: June 8, 2022 from 12-1:30pm
Access Passcode:
K%1#=YBJ
Lunch & Learn Topic: Hispanic Heritage Month
Live Session: September 22, 2022 from 12-1:15pm
Lunch & Learn Topic: Native American History Month
Live Session: November 18, 2022 from 12-1:15pm
Center For Family Services is dedicated to incorporating multicultural principles and practices throughout our innovative continuum of care. We offer ongoing professional development trainings to equip our staff with the tools needed to meet the growing and changing needs of those we serve. Thanks to our Intercultural Competency Committee, an organized group of staff dedicated to diversity, equity, and inclusion, we are a workplace where everyone – staff and those we serve - feels welcomed, comfortable, and respected. At Center For Family Services, everyone belongs.
Download our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) statements:
April
Arab American Heritage Month
- How You See Me
- Why We Need Arab American Heritage Month
- Resources on Arab American Identity and Culture
- Celebrate Arab American Heritage Month
- Reading Guide
Deaf History Month
- Celebrating National Deaf History Month
- National Association of the Deaf
- The World's First Public Deaf School
- What does Deaf Mean?
Celebrate Diversity Month
Autism Awareness Month
- How Autism Feels, From the Inside
- Autism Acceptance vs Awareness: Is there a Difference?
- World Autism Day: Healing our Minds and Shifting our Perspectives, Not our Children
- Resources from the Autism Society
- Living with Autism Spectrum Disorder
Sikh Heritage Month
Black Maternal Health Week - April 11 to 17
Passover - April 22 to 30, 2024
Honoring Cultural Awareness All Year Round
Annual Cultural Diversity Calendar
"Center For Family Services stands against all racism and implicit bias that exists within many of our systems that are supposed to ensure all people have access to fair judicial treatment, educational success, quality health care, food security, housing, and socioeconomic mobility. We, at Center For Family Services, acknowledge that these societal inequities are real and significant barriers to people and communities working to reach their full potential. This is a call for all of us as citizens of our nation and as human beings to reexamine our values. It is not enough to be “not racist”…we must do better. We must be actively anti-racist. We must advocate and call out racism at every turn. Lives are being lost and we must do better to acknowledge this crisis, increase the level of conversation, and take steps to affect change. I ask you to join with me to come together and bring about important changes that have far too long traumatized too many individuals, families, and communities." ~ Richard Stagliano, President/CEO
To read the full statement from our President/CEO on our committment, please click below:
United for Justice Statement - 6/1/20
Want to get involved? To join our next meeting, e-mail Wendy Alexander or Robin Stockton.
The Intercultural Competency Committee meets on the second Friday of each month.
The committee has five subcommittees dedicated to a key area of focus:
- LGBTQ+ Taskforce
- Racial Justice and Equity for Black and Brown People Taskforce
- Communications, Community and Consumer Service Engagement
- Training
- ICC Plan
Committee Members: Intercultural Competency Committee Group and Intercultural Competency Committee Drive (includes minutes and communications)
Stop Asian American Pacific Islander Hate
Report an Asian American Pacific Islander Hate Incident
What to do if You are Experiencing or Witnessing Hate
Understanding Your Right to be Treated Fairly and Without Discrimination
Addressing Anti-Asian Violence with Transformative Justice
Learn More Here!
- Test your own internal biases https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html
- Teaching tolerance https://www.tolerance.org/
- Understanding Systemic Racism https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrHIQIO_bdQ
- Watch the Unequal Opportunity Race https://aapf.org/unequal-opportunity-race
- Resources & Tools Regarding Racism How to Be A Better Ally
- What is White Privilege? https://nationalseedproject.org/Key-SEED-Texts/white-privilege-unpacking-the-invisible-knapsack
- Understand Your Privilege How Privileged Are You?
- Exploring Implicit Bias https://perception.org/research/implicit-bias/
- Racial Equity Tools https://www.racialequitytools.org/fundamentals
- Racism is Real
- Colin Kaepernick's Know Your Rights Camp
Take Action Today
- Join the Black Lives Matter Movement to fight for Freedom, Liberation and Justice https://blacklivesmatter.com/
- Make changes in healthcare disparities Office of Minority Health https://minorityhealth.hhs.gov/
- Join the local causes New Jersey Institute for Social Justice https://www.njisj.org/
- Support Family Equality https://www.familyequality.org/
- Learn about Cultural Competence specialty areas, assessments, and trainings https://nccc.georgetown.edu/
- Keep informed with legal issues and needs https://www.aclu-nj.org/
- Confront Racism at Work https://hbr.org/2020/06/confronting-racism-at-work-a-reading-list
What Are We Reading Now?
How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi
- What else does Ibram X. Kendi recommend? Anti-Racist Reading List
White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo
- Conversations with Robin DiAngelo: PBS Interview, Debunking The Most Common Myths White People Tell About Race
- Resources from Robin DiAngelo
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander
This Bridge Called My Back By Radical Feminists of Color
We Are Not Yet Equal: Understanding Our Racial Divide By Carol Anderson and Tonya Bolden
Black in White Space: The Enduring Impact of Color in Everyday Life by Elijah Anderson
Movie Ideas
Movies to Watch about Race Right Now
New: Aftershock
Conversations about Race
New York Times Conversations on Race: My Black Son, Latinos, Native Americans, Black Women, Growing Up Black
Ted Talks
- Series on Racism in America: Talks to Understand Racism in America
What it's like to be a Muslim in America - Clint Smith: The Danger of Silence
The Model Minority Myth: Why Do We Call Asian Americans The Model Minority?
Articles of Interest
Food is a common thread that brings people together. Center For Family Services Staff Recipe Exchange is a collection of recipes, their origins, and meaninfulness of each dish. Thorugh this exchange, we can learn about the various cultural identities staff hold and feel connected to.
Training Resources
- DEI Resource Tool for Superivision
- Race and Disability Series
- Racial Socialization Resources
- Clinician Self-Education Resources
Check out the Staff Portal and Staff Resource Pages that include numerous cultural awareness training opportunities!
How can I make my training accessible? Check out our ASL Support Guide for tips to facilitate an experience that everyone can engage in.
LGBTQ+
- LGBTQI Resource Guide developed by the ICC Committee, download here.
- Kaleidoscope - Youth-centric LGBTQ program providing support and guidance to South Jersey teens
- Services Empowering the Rights of Victims (SERV) LGBTQ+ Facts
- Pronoun Guide and Pronoun Game
- Treatment with Pride
- The Coming Out Handbook
- Affirming Healthcare in NJ
Additional Resources
- Communicating with and about People with Disabilities
- Resources to Address and Challenge Antisemitism, Resources and Tools for Parents and Educators Addressing Antisemitism, Intolerance, and Bias
- Black Mental Resources, Articles, Videos, and Guides
- Implicit Racial Bias 101: Exploring Implicit Bias in Child Protection
- Connect with the New Jersey Statewide Network for Cultural Competence
- Follow the global efforts to fight racism
- Corporation for Supportive Housing' Racial Disparities and Disproportionality Index
- Broaching the Subjects of Race, Ethnicity, and Culture During the Counseling Process
- From Cultural to Structural Competency
- Implicit Organizational Bias: Mental Health Treatment Culture and Norms as Barriers to Engaging with Diversity
- Mental Health Facts for Diverse Populations
- Structural Competency in Mental Health Nursing
- Why Cultural Safety Rather than Cultural Competency is Required to Achieve Health Equity
- Innovative Doula Programs to Address Racial Health Disparities
- The Center for African American Health
Talking Cultural Awareness with Kids
How to talk to the next generation about racism?
- Talking to Young Children About Racism & Racial Injustice
- Talking to kids
- How to Raise Kids to be Anti-racist and Talk to them about Racism
- Age Appropriate Language when discussing race
- 7 Children's Books with Black and Brown Heroes
Sesame Street’s Coming Together: How to Talk about Racism
- Sesame Street Race Town Hall
- Caring & Sharing: Friends Can Be Different
- I am Somebody song
- What is Racial Literacy
- Helping Parents Talk about Race
- Articles, Printables, Videos, and more on Community Diversity
Other Sesame Street in Communities Resources
Do you have additional resources to share with our team? Email the Intercultural Competence Committee
**If you have concerns about cultural awareness, competency or discrimination within your workplace, please contact the HR Department or refer to our Ethics & Compliance reporting, which is located on the Ethics & Compliance page. **