Advancing Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Allyship

By Dorsey Griffith
Contributing Writer

In 2012 CANP crafted its mission, vision, core values and goals, which were infused with a commitment to diversity, closing health care gaps and meeting patient needs. But it was the national reckoning around systemic racism and implicit bias with the killing of George Floyd in 2020 that moved CANP leadership to take a deeper dive, examine the organization from within and more purposefully work toward change.

"As a professional organization for nurse practitioners in California, we are working to ensure that CANP represents the diversity among NPs across the state and the people and communities we serve,” said CANP President Patti Gurney. “We want to make a commitment to advancing diversity, equity, inclusion and allyship in all aspects of CANP’s work as we seek to achieve health and social justice for all people in California. I want to extend a personal invitation to join us at CANP as we learn to be health justice allies: those who listen, learn, come alongside, and work as allies for all people to be heard, seen, and cared for in the way they deserve."

The Health Justice Committee is the formal forum for this effort, launched in Oct. 2020. Word of the committee spread quickly at various statewide and chapter leadership meetings, and today dozens of CANP members have expressed interest the committee’s purpose and work. At the Annual Educational Conference, supported by NSO, in April, health justice was a topic in three virtual “lounges,” including one for NPs who identify as LGBTQ, and the other for Black, Indigenous and NPs who identify as people of color.

Karen Ayers, a longtime CANP leader and NP in Humboldt County, is at the committee’s helm. Ayers has been energized and inspired by the Black Lives Movement and jumped at the opportunity to serve in the leadership role.

“I am a privileged white person myself, and I don’t want to see the energy out there fading,” she said. “In our world, racism and inequity are built in, and we don’t realize it because they are so entrenched. We have our heads down, and we don’t see how we are perpetuating these problems or at least not pushing back against them.”

Ayers urges us to raise our consciousness about inequities that put many people at a disadvantage, even those who have access to health care, jobs and health insurance.  She said the committee will work hard to educate members about the meaning of inequity, which may be less discernable than inequality.

“Because of inequities in the world we live in and in the health care system, we know that people struggle every single day to get things I know they could get if they had Medi-Cal or access to an FQHC, like counseling, access to psychiatrist and medication without a co-pay. People often don’t get what they need because they can’t afford it even when they have a job that provides benefits. It’s not just a matter of race. Those kinds of things are ingrained our system and perpetuate inequity.”

Part of the committee’s work will be to look inward, examine CANP leadership and management and address any embedded structural inequities. Future plans are to have an outside audit (a gap analysis) of the organization to identify those areas in need of change. Several members participated in a virtual Allyship Training in early March aimed at helping providers become allies to vulnerable or more marginalized groups. The workshop was recorded and is available to all CANP members.

In addition to highlighting health justice as a topic at the recent educational conference, the committee is forming a platform on Slack to engage individual members in health justice work groups and projects and to collaborate on legislative advocacy, outreach and events. The committee also hopes to ally with other nursing and health care organizations to do joint heath justice projects. 

“Ultimately, it’s about the people we serve,” she said. “We are providers in the system and we have a little power in the hierarchy of things. We need to step up.”