Evaluating Undoing Racism and Health Equity Training with a State Health Department

Undoing Racism is the signature workshop of The People's Institute for Survival and Beyond. Through dialogue, reflection, role-playing, strategic planning and presentations, this intensive process challenges participants to analyze the structures of power and privilege that hinder social equity and prepares them to be effective organizers for justice. The multiracial team of organizers/trainers includes more than 100 men and women whose anti-racist organizing expertise includes years with civil, labor and welfare rights struggles, educational, foster care, social service and health reform movements, as well as youth and grassroots community organizing. An average of 30 groups per month participate in The People’s Institute Undoing Racism®/Community Organizing process.

In this particular instance, the goal of the Undoing Racism Workshops was to enhance the capacity of the Michigan Department of Community Health's Bureau of Family, Maternal & Child Health to reduce racial disparities in infant mortality.

The Undoing Racism workshop helped to increase competency in the following topics:
-Racial prejudice and racism
-Racial privilege and power
-Institutional, cultural, and internalized racism
-Instiutional norms and practices
-Racial health disparities
-Social determinants of racial health disparities

The evaluation of the workshop showed that self-rated competencies for 163 participants increased between pretests and posttests in terms of understanding internalized racism, institutional norms/practices, institutional racism, and cultural racism. Self-rated competencies in regards to institutional racism increased for both African American and Whites. They also increased for both members who had no previous training as well as those who already had some formal training in the past.