Progress in Our Community
For our Community "One in Christ" MLK Service we reached out to leaders in the community to get updates on how their organization is working on unity within the community, and areas that are still needing to be worked on. See below for their responses.
Randy Maiers - Community Foundation of St. Clair County
- Feedback
- Operations
- Board & Committees
- Investment
- Grants & Scholarships
- Philanthropy
- There is still work to be done in many areas.
Josh Chapman - YMCA of the Blue Water Area
- Creating intentional processes to support economic prosperity
- Create safe spaces to have honest conversation
- Focusing on outcomes and not talking points
- Providing hope
- Focusing on terminology in terms of equity
- Continuing the conversation so we don’t go silent until “something” happens again.
- Continue to have conversation around equality vs equity
Theo Kerhoulas - Port Huron Area School District
- PHS were the first K-12 school district in the region to open an office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. This team is presently focused on five goals and working to expand.
- More work in reducing the achievement and opportunity gaps between certain groups.
Melinda Johnson - Blue Water Community Action
- We have offered opportunities to learn about bias and had trainings on harassment.
- We had planned more trainings, but the pandemic caused us to set them aside for now.
- The most critical item is that we need to be “consistently persistent” in the work.
Chief Joseph Platzer - Port Huron Police Department
- Walked in the NAACP, BLM, & student planned protests.
- Created/Displayed a unity banner in front of MOC;
- Created a specific “Duty to Intervene” policy to include all crimes force.
- Updated policies: Subject Control – Lethal and Less Lethal Force and Biased Based Policing.
- Placed department polices on-line on our department website.
- Continued to keep a close relationship with the NAACP and local media to answer questions.
- Continue to maintain national (CALEA) and statewide (MACP) accreditation.
- Continue to submit PHPD information to the National Use-of-Force Data Collection.
- Continue to have a supervisor and the Captain review all subject control/Use of Force incidents.
- Implementation of body-worn cameras. PHPD has had in-car camera systems for over 25 years.
- Created a Professional Standards / Training Sergeant position.
- Continue with the Chief’s – Community Resource Champions.
- Create a better understanding of all groups involved.
- Get more officers of different races, genders to apply as employees.
- Train officers more and provide them the necessary equipment to be a great officer.
- Attend events to interact socialize with people or groups different from your own.
Stella Daniels - St. Clair County Department of Health and Human Services
- We have created an Internal DEI Team to bring collective awareness
- Created County Wide DEI plan.
- We also utilize Continuous quality improvement activities to reduce disparity in service
- Collaborating with community partners to discuss DEI initiatives to mitigate disparities
- Providing Mandatory Reporter Training to highest referral sources for abuse/neglect cases.
- Incorporating DEI principles into all hiring practices.
- Mandatory Bias Training for employees
- ERRACE Training (Anti-Racism Workshop) for all Managers and DEI team members
- Increase foster care homes for marginalized populations though community education.
- Initiate an Internal review of practices to reduce disparity.
- Increase community engagement through education of Programs and Services.
- DEI as a standing agenda item in all staff meetings
Randy Fernandez – City of Marysville
- Put on a diversity training
- Started and continue to host the Diversity Initiative of St. Clair County on a monthly basis.
- Reach out to minority groups/magazines, etc. whenever they have job openings.
- Attend & sponsor or find sponsors for minority-based events throughout the county
- Acknowledges more work needs to be done.
- Know they have short comings, owns them, and strives always to do better.
