Contact
Introduction
The Hamilton Family Health Team has embarked on a journey to identify and address areas in the organization that require attention through a lens of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion.
In this section, you will find the following:
HFHT EDI Statement and Key Terms
Land Acknowledgement
The City of Hamilton is situated upon the traditional territories of the Erie, Neutral, Huron-Wendat, Haudenosaunee and Mississaugas. This land is covered by the Dish With One Spoon Wampum Belt Covenant, which was an agreement between the Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabek to share and care for the resources around the Great Lakes. We further acknowledge that this land is covered by the Between the Lakes Purchase, 1792, between the Crown and the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation.
Today, the City of Hamilton is home to many Indigenous people from across Turtle Island (North America) and we recognize that we must do more to learn about the rich history of this land so that we can better understand our roles as residents, neighbours, partners and caretakers.
HFHT EDI Statement
The Hamilton Family Health Team is guided by, and committed to, the core values of equity, diversity, and inclusion.
We recognize that social, economic, and political factors significantly impact our health and access to health care, through social determinants of health such as race, immigration, gender, sexual orientation, disAbility, education, employment and income, housing, social supports, early childhood experiences, among others.
We also recognize that both current and historical systemic discrimination have contributed to the creation of health inequities, unfair systems and policies that prevent people from being well and accessing health care, in our community and beyond.
The HFHT is committed to identifying and addressing these barriers, within our organization and community. Guided by the frameworks of anti-racism, anti-oppression, intersectionality, and health equity, we are also committed to:
- ongoing self-reflection;
- addressing inequities, and creating opportunities to build inclusion, in our internal processes;
- enhancing connections through community partnerships;
- increasing access to care for the people we serve.
Key Terms in the HFHT EDI Statement
Anti-oppression (Prepared by Anjali Upadhya-O'Brien, MSW, RSW)
- Based on the understanding that social difference exists along lines of race, gender, class, sexual preference, disability, age, and others, due to power imbalances among social groups, that create privilege and marginalization.
- Believes that individual circumstances must be placed within the context of social and political systems, as well as historical and geographical context (Burke & Harrison, 2002).
- Involves surfacing power dynamics and minimizing power imbalances, challenging oppressive structures, power sharing, and understanding how socio-political factors that people are subject to, affect relationships.
Anti-racism (Prepared by EMPOWER Strategy Group)
- Anti-Racism is defined as the work of actively opposing racism by advocating for changes in political, economic, and social life.
SOURCE: Race Forward, “Race Reporting Guide” (2015).
- An active and consistent process of change to eliminate individual, institutional and systemic racism as well as the oppression and injustice racism causes.
Health Equity
- Health equity is created when individuals have the fair opportunity to reach their fullest health potential. Achieving health equity requires reducing unnecessary and avoidable difference that are unfair and unjust. Many causes of health inequities related to social and environmental factors including: income, social status, race, gender, education and physical environment.
SOURCE: Public Health Ontario
- Differences in the health status of individuals and groups are called health inequalities…the social determinants of health can also have an important influence on health. For example, Canadians with higher incomes are often healthier than those with lower incomes. Health inequity refers to health inequalities that are unfair or unjust and modifiable. For example, Canadians who live in remote or northern regions do not have the same access to nutritious foods such as fruits and vegetables as other Canadians.
SOURCE: Government of Canada
Intersectionality
- The complex, cumulative way in which the effects of multiple forms of discrimination (such as racism, sexism, and classism) combine, overlap, or intersect especially in the experiences of marginalized individuals or groups
SOURCE: Merriam Webster Dictionary
- This means that people can inhabit identities that allow them to experience privilege and marginalization at the same time.
- Per Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw: Intersectionality is simply a prism to see the interactive effects of various forms of discrimination and disempowerment. It looks at the way that racism, many times, interacts with patriarchy, heterosexism, classism, xenophobia — seeing that the overlapping vulnerabilities created by these systems actually create specific kinds of challenges. “Intersectionality 102,” then, is to say that these distinct problems create challenges for movements that are only organized around these problems as separate and individual. So when racial justice doesn’t have a critique of patriarchy and homophobia, the particular way that racism is experienced and exacerbated by heterosexism, classism etc., falls outside of our political organizing. It means that significant numbers of people in our communities aren’t being served by social justice frames because they don’t address the particular ways that they’re experiencing discrimination.
SOURCE: Intergroup Resources, “Intersectionality” (2012). Prepared by EMPOWER Strategy Group