Jennifer M. Gómez, Co-Chair, IDEA Board Working Group

On behalf of the ISSTD Board IDEA Working Group, I am excited to share with you the ISSTD Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, & Accessibility (IDEA) Statement. In this brief, I would like to discuss the process by which we created the Statement.

In line with the ISSTD Strategic Plan, the IDEA Board Working Group began the process of creating an IDEA Statement for ISSTD at the start of 2024. The first step was to create our own definitions for inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility, drawing from a plethora of existing scholarship, other organizations’ Statements, and much discussion in the monthly meetings. We felt definitions were important for us within ISSTD to establish a shared understanding of what we, in ISSTD, mean by these terms. 

With the IDEA definitions in place to guide us, we drafted a two-sentence Statement that matched the style of the ISSTD Vision & Mission Statements. We then solicited feedback from 15 people-including leaders in ISSTD and IDEA experts outside of ISSTD, who responded to both multiple choice and open-ended questions. The consistent feedback we received was that the Statement needed to be more concrete and substantive. 

Based on that feedback, we decided that a brief, two-sentence Statement did not make sense, as we needed to share more context of the content, including the IDEA definitions and some of the complexities that came out in our discussions. We also wanted to avoid the appearance and reality of a performative Statement that was neither concrete nor actionable. 

Therefore, we drafted a longer IDEA Statement that includes:

• An introductory paragraph
• Tensions of ISSTD standing in the field and the world
• A brief history and future-oriented trajectory of IDEA efforts in ISSTD
• The IDEA Board Working Group’s process and the IDEA definitions
• A conclusion paragraph

We shared a draft of this revised Statement at the Annual Business Meeting in February 2025, soliciting feedback from ISSTD membership. Based on that feedback, we made minor revisions to the Statement. In March 2025, the Board approved this finalized IDEA Statement.

The IDEA Statement is one step in the process. The other Strategic Plan objectives that the IDEA Board Working Group are working on include:

1. Complete initial assessment of IDEA across all areas of ISSTD
2. Cultivate collaborative relationships with IDEA-aligned organizations serving marginalized and underserved communities
3. Evaluate and implement IDEA practices within ISSTD Staff and Board of Directors
4. Identify and implement IDEA-informed ways to remove barriers to ISSTD membership and training participation
5. Identify and develop IDEA-informed opportunities for fundraising to support other strategic plan objectives

We hope current and prospective ISSTD members will engage with the ISSTD IDEA Statement and join us in ISSTD’s goals for upward trajectory in inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility. 

Thanks for reading!

Jennifer M. Gómez, on behalf of the ISSTD IDEA Board Working Group:
Co-Chairs: D. Michael Coy & Jennifer M. Gómez
Members: Adithy, Liz Chalenburg, Jules Trana, Eva Young
Staff: Mary Pat Hanlin & Casey Richman