Anti-Discrimination Training and Programming
The Center for Violence Prevention (CVP) at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) is committed to promoting and supporting equity and social justice for all individuals and groups through its research, trainings, and programs. To combat discrimination, CVP is contributing to the development of internal trainings and programs at CHOP to increase respect and belonging and decrease microaggressions, as well as school-based professional development trainings for teachers to promote classroom unity and cooperation and decrease identity-based disrespectful behaviors.
Microaggressions are “brief commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, and environmental indignities, intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory or negative slights and insults based on one's background characteristics” (Sue et al., 2007). Microaggressions can be committted by and towards any individual regardless of their background or history. CVP is honored to serve as a leader in anti-discrimination training and programming at CHOP.
Respect4All Program at CHOP
Funded by a Department of Pediatrics Diversity Endowment Award (2020-2022), CVP developed Respect4All, a microaggressions skill building program for CHOP faculty and trainees. To create this actionable curriculum, Dr. Leff and Dr. Campbell used a community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach to combine an extensive literature review on workplace bullying, unconscious bias, and microaggressions with extensive feedback from an advisory board of community leaders and a curriculum committee comprised of a range of different individuals from across CHOP.
The Respect4All intervention consists of three 90-minute interactive sessions and utilizes animated video simulations to:
- Increase the dialogue around diversity, respect for all, and inclusion
- Teach strategies to recognize and intervene in the moment when experiencing microaggressions
- Provide skill-based training to address and cope with being a target of a microaggression
In a recent small pilot study of Respect4All, participants reported that microaggressions occur frequently (62% reported being a target and 75% reported being a bystander). From pre- to post-program, there was an increased likelihood of and confidence in using a range of strategies in handling microaggressions when in an ally/target role and when in a perpetrator role, regardless of one's own backgrounds or characteristics.
What's next for this program?
Over the past two years, the Respect4All program has been disseminated to train faculty and staff within the Department of Pediatrics (divisions of Adolescent Medicine, Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics, and Hematology). This has allowed for more individuals across CHOP to receive the program while we continue to fine-tune and systematize the program.
At the same time the original program has been developed into three professional development workshops for 3rd-8th grade teachers so that they can use the strategies to support students handling school-based microaggressions more successfully and to help build supportive and inclusive classrooms which respect and value the backgrounds of all students. The program is also being adapted into a series of training modules for biomedical research trainees and their supervisors. Using evidence-based methods, the training modules will be iteratively designed to be feasible, engaging, and efficient, as well as self-directed, self-paced, publicly accessible, and user-friendly in the context of the workday.
