March 14, 2024 12:00 pm Central
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Guest Panelists:
Jessica Halem, MBA, University of Pennsylvania
Paul Terry, PhD, HERO
This webinar on belongingness, trust, and making organizational change is inspired by Jessica Halem’s manuscript entitled “LGBTQ+ Workplace Inclusion and the Great Resignation,” published last year in the American Journal of Health Promotion and awarded their “Paper of the Year.” Consistent with the challenge for so many working in the health promotion profession, Halem wrote: “I think about how to make change from the middle. I enjoy supporting those workers with less perceived organizational power become their own one-person movement for change inside of their workplaces.”
In this webinar, we will discuss the kinds of leadership and professional development that puts you in touch with leaders from dominant and marginalized groups alike. Why should leaders be mindful of “in groups” and “out groups?” How should belongingness, within and between groups, influence the work of both position leaders and grassroots leaders? HERO, like so many organizations, joined in the extraordinary surge post George Floyd’s murder to commit to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives. Yet, DEI has gotten caught up in culture wars and, post the Supreme Court ruling against affirmative action, many organizations are waning in their investments in DEI. We will discuss strategies aimed at increasing organizational support for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) issues alongside the concerns of other marginalized groups. We will discuss “DEI 2.0” and strategies such as the use of employee resource groups (ESG) where people can build personal connections. And we will interact with webinar participants to explore how other venues can be created for advancing allyship, strength finding, and building understanding across differences.
Speakers
Jessica Halem, MBA, is the Senior Director of The Eidos LGBTQ+ Health Initiative (pronounced: ay-dose) at the University of Pennsylvania. Eidos is a social innovation hub and think tank that collaborates with industry, nonprofits, government, and entrepreneurs to improve the health and well-being of LGBTQ+ people. Before joining Penn, Jessica was the inaugural LGBTQ Director at Harvard Medical School. When she was a young upstart, Jessica ran the Lesbian Community Cancer Project in Chicago where she implemented the nation’s first cultural competency trainings for the CDC and served on then-candidate Obama’s first LGBT Advisory Committee. With awards from HERO, GLMA, Howard Brown, and The Advocate magazine, Jessica uses her MBA, improv theater skills, and experience as a community organizer to marshal people and resources to make meaningful change. After a decades long career as a stand-up comic, she is a sought-after speaker addressing health equity, workplace inclusion, and innovation.
Paul Terry, PhD, is a Senior Fellow at HERO where he collaborates with HERO members and national experts in planning learning events and supports the HERO team in organizing the annual forum, think tanks and webinars. He preceded Karen Moseley as HERO’s president. Paul is Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Health Promotion and is a Past-President of the Minnesota Public Health Association. He serves on advisory councils for The National Academy of Sciences, the American Heart Association, the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and the University of North Carolina, Gillings School of Global Public Health. Prevention programs that Paul developed won the C. Everett Koop National Health Award. He earned his PhD from the University of Minnesota and his master’s from Minnesota State University at Mankato where he was honored with the Distinguished Alumni Humanitarian Award.