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Health equity statement from CAMH Technical, legal and privacy concerns Technical, legal and privacy concerns How to use the course platform Acknowledgements

Section 1: Organization-level health equity

1A Health equity is a human right 1B Health equity is an issue for immigrants and refugees 1C Equity is a high priority for boards 1D Equity is a high priority for funders 1E Equity is a high priority for communities 1F Equity as a human right
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Factors affecting individual wellness

Section 2: Staff-level health equity

2A Creating an equitable environment 2B Implementing antiracism and anti-oppression organizational strategies 2C Recognizing burnout and compassion fatigue and promoting self-care
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Self-care Compassion Fatigue Burnout and its effects Vicarious trauma Seeking Help How organizations can support staff How supervisors can support staff Workplace empowerment

Section 3:

3A Equity as a measure of service quality 3A Equity as a measure of service quality 3B Equitable services improve outcomes 3C Equitable services are more cost effective
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Section 4: Tools and resources

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Implicit bias

Workplace empowerment

The negative impacts of doing trauma work are decreased when service providers feel that they have a sense of control in the workplace. As a result, the implementation of policies and practices that emphasize shared power in organizations is important. (Slattery & Goodman, 2009; Kulkani et al., 2013; Knight, 2010)

Achieving this involves shifting away from traditional hierarchical structural models in the workplace (Slattery & Goodman, 2009).

The literature offers some examples of ways in which organizations have successfully moved away from a more hierarchical structure. For instance, Thomas (1999) highlighted how feminist organizations “flatten the hierarchy” by combining administrative and service provision responsibilities and distributing them equally among staff. Recall, how the impacts of hierarchal organizations was mentioned earlier. The researchers also highlighted the development of rotating committees to complete the logistical organizational tasks.

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The Sanctuary Model

In addition, The Sanctuary Model has been identified as an innovative model for improving the well-being of service providers and service provision. This model integrates the perspectives of both clients and staff where safety, collaboration and mutual goals are important (Bloom, 2000).

icon See the Sanctuary Staff Training Manual

The Shared Power Scale

Slattery & Goodman (2009) developed another tool that may be helpful: The Shared Power Scale. This scale is intended to assess service providers’ perceptions of shared power within an organization.

This 15-item measure reflects the dimensions of shared power: equality, voice, representation, shared leadership and respect. The response choices range from 1 (rarely) to 5 (often), with higher scores representing more shared power. Ultimately, an organization that has an environment where there is shared power will provide better protection for service providers from the negative impacts of working with traumatized populations (Slattery & Goodman, 2009).

iconLearn more about the scale