State Director’s October Angle: Bias Has No Place In Our Work
State Director’s October Angle: Bias Has No Place In Our Work
State Director’s October Angle: Bias Has No Place In Our Work
I want to remind all of our DSS professionals about racial bias. We are engaging our team members around the issue of our bias in decision making based upon implicit bias, racial bias, selective exposure theory, and confirmation bias, among others. I ask that you join along with us to confront racial and exposure bias by being cognizant of decisions that may be influenced by bias on the basis of race and/or a focus on information that confirms pre-existing attitudes.
As a social services system, SCDSS recognizes we as a system are not immune to the challenges posed by racial bias, and we recognize that these challenges affect you, our staff, as well. We also acknowledge there are times when poverty is confused or misidentified as neglect. Poverty alone does not equate to neglect, and we are working to transform this thinking at all levels of the agency to a focus on connection of resources. I ask you to change your perspective on this with us. We acknowledge that there are times when families we serve enter our system as a result of bias, racism, and lack of access to resources. We also recognize that we cannot achieve our agency mission to promote the safety, permanency and well-being of children/youth, families and vulnerable adults, without confronting these issues head on.
