2024 Program: GARE Breakout Session Block 2

This session will highlight approaches for organizing strong peer networks to advance racial equity. Presenters will offer their experiences organizing at the local, regional, and national levels to advance racial equity across governmental organizations. Presenters will describe their approaches to establishing and growing their networks, including initial peer network mapping, forming enduring co-leadership structures, developing shared intentions (e.g., purpose, objectives), establishing online shared resources, and identifying opportunities for recurrent connection, among others. Participants will engage in activities intended to support consideration of how they can approach organizing their own peer networks and how resources from GARE may support their efforts.

Despite decades of reform and important movement gains, racial disparities in the criminal legal system have remained unchanged or worsened across the country. Moreover, the “tough on crime” policy making philosophy and narrative of the 1990’s has swung back stronger than ever, threatening to undermine the important gains that have been made. During this interactive workshop, participants will learn about an innovative approach grounded in restorative justice values to advance racial equity in the legal system. Together, we will co-create a Brave Community, engage in learning about the social/ historical/ political legacy of the criminal legal system, and co-create root solutions based on the content brought forth by participants. By the end of this workshop, participants will have an understanding of the Brave Community framework and Learning Exchange Retreat approach as a way to apply values of cultural healing and restorative justice to addressing structural racism in the criminal legal system. Additionally, participants will hear from formerly incarcerated leaders and government practitioners who have put this approach into practice, while engaging in a restorative dialogue about the triumphs and tribulations encountered along the way.

This session will provide a framework to help you strengthen your equity work as we share six practices for building a more inclusive community. We will provide examples of how teams across the country are connecting and leveraging those practices in their own community. We will also operationalize these concepts as we dig in on a practical example from Oklahoma City, where they are embedding equity into their existing programs, specifically in the areas of designing an equitable built environment using data and engaging the broader community.

This interactive workshop will provide historical context for the 60-year era of “minority business” development policy that was codified under the Nixon administration to cherry-pick Black citizens able and willing to contract with the federal government. Since 1969, these supplier diversity programs have focused on assisting well-placed, minoritized business owners with products or services that government agencies seek to procure. However, these programs never focused on outcomes related to improving the collective well-being of minoritized communities themselves. The goal of this session is to raise the literacy of participants as it relates to business formation, social entrepreneurship and racial equity.

Islamophobia refers to the framework by which Muslims and Islam are portrayed in the United States and western world. Islamophobia leads to prejudice and prejudice leads to discriminatory practices and hate incidents against Muslims and anyone perceived to be Muslim, such as Arabs and Sikhs. In the last six months alone from October 2023 to March 2024, there was a 200% increase of hate incidents against Muslim Americans. This session will cover Islamophobia's dominant tropes, its roots, current manifestations on Muslim Americans and ways to combat it institutionally in the workplace, school campus environment and in government policy.

The purpose of evaluation is to provide a systematic assessment of a project, program, policy, or initiative to determine its effectiveness, effciency, relevance, and sustainability. In this hands-on workshop, participants will practice how to use evaluative thinking to drive accountability for advancing racial equity within their jurisdiction. Participants will also be able to bring their work and get guidance from peers as well as from three national evaluation organizations: Equal Measure, Ubuntu Research & Evaluation, and Clear Impact.

This workshop will share lessons learned from Chicago’s Cumulative Impact Assessment, a citywide project that provided a look at how environmental burdens and other stressors vary across Chicago. The Cumulative Impact Assessment built upon input from community-led environmental justice organizations, with people most impacted by environmental injustices providing leadership and strategic guidance. In this workshop, participants will learn best practices on co-leading and co-designing projects with community partners, based on the Chicago Cumulative Impact Assessment. Participants will also practice using resources such as the Spectrum of Engagement and Elevated Chicago’s Community Engagement Principles to apply to their local contexts.