New Tool Helps Leaders Reduce Racial and Ethnic Disparities

To ensure that all chil­dren have what they need to suc­ceed, lead­ers must first under­stand the roles that race, class and cul­ture play in shap­ing out­comes and oppor­tu­ni­ties for vul­ner­a­ble chil­dren nation­wide. Enter the Results Equi­ty Cross­walk, a new tool from the Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion that enables lead­ers to bring atten­tion to and act on any racial and eth­nic disparities.

The Results Equi­ty Cross­walk is a sim­ple grid that guides teams through ques­tions and helps lead­ers devel­op and then imple­ment robust strate­gies that can close equi­ty gaps.

Learn more about Results Count

The tool’s ques­tions are inten­tion­al­ly designed to coun­ter­act blind spots that may be keep­ing lead­ers from tru­ly see­ing the root caus­es of dis­par­i­ties, accord­ing to Bill Shep­ard­son, a senior asso­ciate at the Casey Foun­da­tion. ​“We all have implic­it bias­es,” he says. ​“The tool helps lead­ers to move past them and to see prob­lems and solu­tions more clear­ly by talk­ing about pow­er, race, class, gen­der and oth­er differences.”

The cross­walk is part of a com­pre­hen­sive port­fo­lio of tools and pro­grams that make up the Foundation’s Results Count™ approach, which has long helped lead­ers achieve bet­ter results for chil­dren and fam­i­lies. The tool pairs sev­en steps for advanc­ing racial equi­ty and inclu­sion, as out­lined in the Foundation’s Race Equi­ty and Inclu­sion Action Guide, with ele­ments of a Results Count action plan.

These action plans uti­lize an approach called tar­get­ed uni­ver­sal­ism, which rec­og­nizes that com­mu­ni­ties and sub­pop­u­la­tions are dif­fer­ent­ly sit­u­at­ed due to a wide range of fac­tors, includ­ing vari­ances in edu­ca­tion, hous­ing and lan­guage. With­in this frame­work, lead­ers strive to enhance out­comes for all kids by set­ting an over­all goal and by pay­ing par­tic­u­lar atten­tion to the real­i­ties fac­ing sub­groups posi­tioned far­thest away from this uni­ver­sal fin­ish line.

“Through our work with lead­ers around the coun­try, we have learned that focus­ing on bet­ter and more equi­table results simul­ta­ne­ous­ly is the only way to be sure that chil­dren and fam­i­lies get the oppor­tu­ni­ties they need to thrive,” says Shepardson.

Check out the Results Equi­ty Crosswalk