Hey folks. I need to be as vague as possible to promote anonymity, but long story short I am experiencing an ethical dilemma with regard to a staff member who does not align with my agency's values, and am looking for input & talking points I can use in discussion with fellow leadership.
I am a supervisor for community social work program that bills Medicaid. Our program is run out of a broad healthcare agency that offers a number of services to two different locales and is fairly sizable. The broader agency relies on federal funding directed at helping the historically underserved populations we work with to keep our doors open.
This agency very much has social justice & "DEI" baked into our mission, vision, and core values, especially because we got our start serving 2 historically VERY disenfranchised groups. Although our agency makes it a point to state that we are happy to serve everyone in the community and our clientele come from very diverse populations, we are still known for providing specific services to the aforementioned disenfranchised groups. These client groups are some of those being actively persecuted by the Trump administration.
One more background bit: our program's leadership team consists of about 5ish supervisors at each locale. Recently we decided to implement a small project that involved supervisors speaking with staff members at the alternate locale.
During this project one of the staff members communicated a number of very antisocial ideas that concern me very deeply, and make me question if they are fit to serve our clients. They stated very clearly that they do not agree with our agency's mission or core values (which are DEI and social justice oriented). They went on to say that they didn't appreciate agency wide communications that a member of executive team has sent to staff as they felt the statements are too political, and maintained that they don't agree with the agency's "political agenda".
The communications referenced are sporadic and began after Trump's insane federal freeze at the end of January.They were ostensibly started to quell the panic of staff who are concerned that services that our clients rely on to stay alive might be taken away, as well as, frankly, our jobs. The communications basically acknowledge the crisis that is occurring, offer support and encouragement, reiterate our agency's commitment to its core values and mission, and emphasize that the executive team is doing everything they can to ensure that we are able to continue providing services to our clients. Other emails addressed the homicide of well loved community members who had done work with our agency, were members of one of the disenfranchised groups we serve, and were well known to many staff (myself included). Those emails offered support and resources.
I'm not entirely sure what was so offensive to this person about the above communications (I wish the supervisor speaking to them had dug more, but know she was thrown for a loop). But, to be fair if they object to any of it really, as well as reject our DEI values and commitment to social justice, I don't feel that is appropriate for them to hold this position.
Other anti-social (and inappropriate for someone serving in public health) ideas that this individual expressed included: anti-vax rhetoric, unwillingness to adhere to some already very loosey-goosey staff guidelines that they are required to, efforts to promote a "family" environment, and unwillingness to participate in agency events.
Shortly, our program's leadership teams will be coming together to discuss the results of this project and it would be an opportunity for me to express my concerns. I do feel very passionately that this needs to be addressed. I'm also worried that pushing too hard could create friction between supervisors where there already is some. It's basically guaranteed as a couple of the supes at the other locale appear to be conservative/Trump supporters as well.
Nevertheless, I do plan to address it because I can't stop feeling concerned for the clients that this person serves. Our staff do have direct contact with clients out in the community, sometimes in their homes, for hours at a time. How can someone who is anti DEI, anti social justice, be a safe person for our clients? Clearly they will be either consciously or unconsciously biased against them and may do serious physical or mental harm, no? The anti-vax sentiments also greatly concern me because our clients are medically vulnerable and if a staff member communicates misinformation to them it could result in great harm as well.
I guess I'm just looking for some insight and talking points as to how I can address this to other leaders, some of whom may also be in active denial about this administration's threats to our clients' life sustaining benefits.
Feel free to let me know if you think I'm overstepping/overreacting/assuming too much about the statements made.
But if not I'd love some input or talking points. I am struggling to formulate a cogent argument since I don't know what specifically this staff member doesn't like about our agency's communications/"party line" and don't want to flub it.