How We Do It:
Diversity Equity and Inclusion Training
At Mending the Chasm, we center the needs of those most deeply impacted by the challenge we’re working to address, and ensure our approach is empowering and asset-based. Our cultural transformation model for facilitating equity, inclusion and belonging transformation is grounded in four key pillars:
Accountability
Resourcing
Conflict Transformation
Social Capital
Accountability means keeping promises and being responsible for our actions and choices. In equity and inclusion, it ensures fairness for everyone. When we're accountable, we build trust and fix things when they go wrong. It's like being a good teammate; we all work together to make sure everyone feels valued and treated right.
Resourcing practice is vital for fairness, kindness, and justice. It means making sure everyone has what they need to do the work they are being invited to do or being called to do. In the words of Resmaa Menakem, "Resource" is anyone or anything that promotes growth and healing.”
Conflict transformation is like turning disagreements into understanding and growth. In equity and inclusion, it helps us learn from differences and find common ground. Instead of fighting, we listen, learn, and work together. Conflict transformation builds bridges, ensuring fairness and unity where everyone's voice matters.
Social capital, like having good friends, is crucial for fairness and togetherness. It means connecting with people, helping each other, and making sure no one feels left out. Just like a strong friendship circle, social capital creates a community where trust is abundantly flowing, and everyone can experience dignity, safety, and belonging.
These pillars are woven into all of the work we do in a way that is intended to build organizational and individual capacity and practice in these areas so that, over time, the organization is shaping and creating a culture that truly centers the belonging, dignity and safety needs of every team member and community member.
Culture Audit
Our Culture Audit service, delivered in partnership with Lunaria Solutions, combines qualitative and quantitative data analysis to assess an organization's culture.
Our approach includes surveys, interviews, and data analytics to comprehensively understand the organization's values, norms, and behaviours.
Through this partnership, we identify strengths, areas for improvement, and opportunities for cultural transformation. We aim to help organizations align their culture with values, drive employee engagement, and enhance overall performance. By leveraging data analytics and expert insights, we provide actionable recommendations for fostering a positive and inclusive work environment.
Check out this Toronto Foundation case study to see how they leveraged this service to benchmark and track their progress on their equity and inclusion journey.
Workshops & Facilitated Dialogues
Our workshops and facilitated dialogues are immersive experiences designed to bridge divides and promote community understanding. While both experiences offer conceptual learning, interactive activities, and reflective exercises and create a safe and respectful environment for participants to explore complex issues, Facilitated Dialogues are a powerful place to practice the new skills learned collectively.
Led by skilled facilitators, these sessions encourage empathy, dialogue, and collaboration, fostering connections across differences. Participants gain valuable insights, deepen their conflict transformation capacity, and build relationships that transcend identity boundaries.
Whether addressing social, political, or cultural divides, our workshops and dialogues empower individuals to embrace diversity, build bridges, and work towards a more inclusive society.
Community Consultations
Consulting the community that we hope to facilitate change with is a critical part of any transformation process, whether a policy, a program, or a process.
We engage with community members, gather feedback, and empower our clients to co-create solutions that address community needs. We facilitate meaningful dialogue through interactive consultations, surveys, and interviews to foster collaboration and build trust. Our approach is inclusive, ensuring all voices are heard and valued.
We analyze data and provide actionable insights to inform decision-making and drive positive change. By leveraging our facilitation and community engagement expertise, we help organizations strengthen relationships, enhance community impact, and achieve sustainable outcomes. Check out this case study to learn about a process we designed and facilitated for Destination Stratford to see the ways we impact community.
Build Your Organization’s Culture Equitably
Inclusion Coaching for Leaders and Teams
We are pleased to offer coaching services that offer transformative guidance for leaders and teams aiming to cultivate diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace and community cultures.
Through customized coaching sessions, leaders gain insights into their leadership style, biases, and impact on others. Our coaches provide tailored guidance on fostering a culture of belonging, addressing unconscious bias, and navigating complex diversity issues.
Our coaching process can be customized and typically includes self-reflection, skill-building exercises, and action planning to empower leaders and teams to handle even the most difficult conversations with grace, care, and accountability.
By enhancing their understanding of inclusion and belonging, leaders can create environments where all individuals feel valued, respected, and empowered to contribute their best, ultimately driving organizational success and innovation.
Policy Audit and Review
Leveraging the DISM ISO 30415:2021, a globally recognized diversity and inclusion management standard, we evaluate organizational policies to ensure they comply with legal requirements, leading practices, and organizational goals.
This intervention provides value by identifying gaps, inconsistencies, and areas for improvement in existing policies. Consultants conduct a thorough analysis, considering inclusivity, equity, and effectiveness factors. They then recommend changes and updates to policies to enhance their relevance and impact.
This service helps organizations improve compliance, mitigate risks, and promote a fair and inclusive work environment.
Intercultural Development Inventory
The Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) is a transformative tool that assesses and enhances intercultural competence within organizations.
Through an assessment that can be administered for individuals, teams, and organizations, the IDI evaluates individuals' attitudes, knowledge, and skills related to how we relate to and across cultural differences. Our trained facilitators then interpret the results and provide personalized coaching and training to help individuals and teams develop their intercultural competence.
By providing individuals and organizations with insights into their intercultural competence, the IDI enables them to recognize and appreciate diverse perspectives. This heightened awareness can improve communication, collaboration, and conflict resolution in multicultural settings.
Additionally, the IDI empowers individuals to adapt their behaviours and attitudes to better interact with people from different cultures, ultimately promoting inclusivity and equity.
Workplace Restoration Services
We understand that occasionally, even the most belonging-abundant workplaces and communities experience conflict. Workplace restoration is a response to workplace conflict that considers the larger context and what is needed to create a healthier and more harmonious workplace.
Working in partnership with you, our client, we guide you through a transformative process to revitalize organizational culture and foster a healthy work environment. We offer a proactive approach to addressing conflicts, disruptions, or changes that may have occurred within an organization.
By engaging in workplace restoration, organizations can improve their culture, empowering individuals to move forward from past challenges while preventing similar issues in the future.
This process involves comprehensive assessments, targeted interventions, and ongoing support to create a workplace where all members feel valued, respected, and motivated. Through workplace restoration, organizations can build resilience, improve communication, and work to heal the harm that has occurred.
Strategic Planning
Inclusion-centred strategic planning is a process that integrates diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) principles into an organization's strategic goals and operations. This approach involves assessing current practices, identifying areas for improvement, and centring DEI principles and commitments in an organizational strategy.
Through inclusive decision-making processes, diverse perspectives are incorporated into strategic planning discussions. The result is a strategic plan that not only focuses on achieving organizational objectives but also prioritizes creating a diverse, equitable, and inclusive work environment.
By incorporating an inclusion lens into strategic planning, organizations can enhance their ability to attract and retain diverse talent, improve employee engagement, and drive innovation and growth.
EDI Assessment
The DISM ISO 30415:2021 is a globally recognized diversity and inclusion management standard. By leveraging this framework and assessment tool, we empower organizations to effectively integrate equity, inclusion and belonging into their organizational policies, practices, and procedures.
By aligning with this standard, organizations can enhance their diversity and inclusion practices, improve employee engagement, and foster a more inclusive work environment. Our team conducts assessments, can facilitate the implementation of the standard, and develop strategies to meet its requirements.
The value of this service lies in its ability to drive organizational change, promote diversity and inclusion, and ultimately, improve business performance and innovation, and truly align an organization’s work with its values and commitments to equity, inclusion and belonging.
About Leena Sharma Seth
Founder & Principal
Leena is a settler who is cisgender, heterosexual, able-bodied, and a child of Hindu, Punjabi (India), and Brahmin immigrants. Leena brings a set of lived and intersectional experiences to her work as a facilitator, strategist, and process designer in the equity, justice, inclusion and belonging space. Leena’s practice is grounded in the belief that equity work is sacred and that healing, wholeness, and embodiment are critical to creating a just and inclusive present and future.
With over twenty years of experience in various leadership roles, both in Canada and in Asia, Leena has worked in non-profit, consulting, education, philanthropy, and supplier diversity spaces.
FEEDBACK
Client Feedback
"Mending the Chasm is a fantastic partner. They are skilled, honest, clear and extremely helpful when things get tough. Their ongoing attentiveness, coaching and recommended approaches were a perfect match for our organization... It was truly customized, emergent, and iterative, as it needs to be, given how sensitive/difficult/raw/challenging but rewarding this work can be"
"We chose Mending the Chasm because of their deep expertise as well as their access to partners they work with. Another deciding factor was their body based , and trauma informed approach. Our agency has been fully trained in Trauma Informed Perspective and this was very helpful and welcomed.”
"Leena's vast knowledge of the diversity and inclusion space was invaluable in shaping our journey as a team and it served as a lens by which we explored and adjusted our practices - old and new. Leena is not uncomfortable having difficult conversations and comes to the table with an open spirit, a willingness to share and a genuine desire to build the most inclusive cultures.”
"Leena has an effective style as a facilitator and handled our sessions with participants well at different points on their journeys regarding intersectionality, power, and privilege in our lives, including our work and volunteer roles. Since our training, we have more consistently incorporated an equity, diversity, and inclusion lens into many of our programs, offerings, events and tasks.”
"Thank you for guiding us on this journey - it’s been a true joy to learn and grow with you. You have such skill and care with the various individuals in the group, meeting each person at their current level of knowledge and understanding. You’ve opened an important conversation about diversity and inclusion, and navigated us through it expertly - always leading with kindness, empathy, and just enough push.”
