Requesting a seat at someone else’s table

Keesha Gill has over 17 years of experience, serving youth and families. She joined Good Shepherd Services back in 2015 as the program director at a community in Red Hook, Brooklyn, and she’s currently the co-chair of the Equity Council. She has a passion for helping to create change in communities in need, and I am glad to share our conversation with you.

In this episode, we discuss the need to not only make sure that all voices at all tables are recognized, but to go the extra step and to request a seat at someone else’s table to really build relationships and to hear from these communities what they need, and then how we can come together to help provide that.

Topics in this episode

• The importance of individualizing the work within a particular community
• Making decisions from a lens that continues to create equity
• Recognizing our privilege, as well as our own prejudices and preconceived notions
• Making decisions that are centered around people, not just centered around processes
• Allowing communities to define what success looks like for them
• Ways to create helpful partnerships with communities
• Cultural competency versus cultural humility
• Combining resources and knowledge to collaborate on DEI work
  • Examples of resources that extend beyond financial resources

Contact Info

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/keeshagill/

I was so delighted to have Keesha on as a guest, and after this episode I know we’re going to be thinking about how we share our best practices and how we can think about power in a different kind of way. There are a lot of opportunities for this work right now, and we are seeing networks of providers coming together, and seeing agencies create space for change, which are practices that can benefit everyone, making this such an exciting time to do DEI work.