(ALEXANDRIA, Va.) – Senior living advocacy leader Argentum is celebrating Black History Month by promoting Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB) in order to build inclusive workplaces that drive sustainable growth and innovation.
DEIB programs have been an ongoing priority for Argentum, and with February’s designation as Black History Month an even more opportune time to highlight the effort.
“As an industry, senior living needs to make DEIB a part of all of our communities, from the board room to the frontlines of caring for our residents,” said James Balda, president and chief executive officer, Argentum.
In Argentum’s latest Senior Living Executive magazine, DEIB strategies are highlighted with a special emphasis on how leadership in senior living organizations must embrace the culture change for it to be successful.
The senior living profession is also reaching out to Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HCBUs) as part of workforce development programs and to realize the significant and ongoing contributions of these institutions to higher learnings and of Black people’s work in senior living.
“Argentum’s initiatives include efforts to engage HBCUs to realize their potential and continued contributions to senior living communities. Just as Black History Month was created to realize the contributions of Black people in the United States, these institutions provide a unique cultural perspective born out of their history and experiences in communities of color,” said Ashante Abubakar, vice president, workforce development, Argentum.
Black History month is an ongoing extension of the work started more than a century ago by men like Carter G. Woodson and W. E. B. Du Bois, who believed that truth could not be denied, and that reason would prevail over prejudice.
Woodson and the organization he founded, the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH), conceived and announced Negro History Week in 1925. The effort met with huge success and by the time of Woodson’s death in 1950, Negro History Week had become a central part of African American life and substantial progress had been made in bringing more Americans to appreciate the celebration.
The celebration was expanded to a month in 1976 when President Gerald Ford urged Americans to “seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history.”
Every year since, each U.S. president has issued Black History Month proclamations. And the original association, now named the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), continues to promote the study of Black history all year.
Argentum’s dialogue on DEIB accelerated this past November at the Senior Living Leadership Summit where top executives learned about new strategies to turn their focus to building inclusive workplaces that drive sustainable growth and innovation.
There, Argentum launched the first-ever Senior Living DEIB Survey and the Senior Living DEIB Toolkit to aid industry operators and organizations in advancing DEIB practices. The survey, conducted by Ferguson Partners, collected information across the participating companies measuring both the degree to which DEIB programs are deployed and the diversity of their respective staff.
Released by the Senior Living DEIB Coalition, a partnership among Argentum, the American Seniors Housing Association (ASHA), and the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing & Care (NIC), the new survey marks the first industry-wide effort to summarize the data on DEIB.
The Executive Summary results can be found here.
The DEIB Toolkit can be found here.
For more information, contact [email protected].
About Argentum:
Argentum is the leading national association exclusively dedicated to supporting companies operating professionally managed, resident-centered senior living communities and the older adults and families they serve. Since 1990, Argentum has advocated for choice, independence, dignity, and quality of life for all older adults. Argentum’s programs and initiatives are driven by its membership. For more information about joining Argentum, please visit argentum.org/membership. Learn more at argentum.org.
Media Contact:
Patrick Connole, Content Director & Editor
ARGENTUM | Expanding Senior Living
703-599-7412 | [email protected]
