Coming Together for Racial Understanding for Extension employees: One year follow up evaluation

Abstract Information: University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources (UC ANR) was one of many Extension institutions to participate in the national train-the-trainer initiative for Coming Together for Racial Understanding (CTRU). CTRU is a dialogue-to-change process for communities seeking new pathways for working together across racial/ethnic lines that seek to foster understanding and build trust in order to make informed collective action for meaningful change, unlike required DEI training alone which seldom seeks to develop trusting relationships among participants (CTRU Unique Value Statement, Michigan State). In 2020-2021, UC ANR hosted a community dialogue with internal employees. This lightning presentation will share the practical evaluation strategy employed to assess self-reported behavior change one year after the completion of the community dialogue. The final dialogue session of CTRU centered on participants committing to actions they could to do promote racial understanding and equity at the individual, organizational, and community level. These actions were utilized in the survey instrument. For example, participants committed to "identifying allies who can support me in difficult moments when bringing up racism at work." Participants reported that they started (n=4) or improved (n=5) doing this action one year after the community dialogue. The survey had a 36% response rate out of 25 participants. More findings will be shared during the presentation.