March was a busy month for the Religious Diversity in the Workplace program. We attended several conferences, presented at an Association of Muslim American Lawyers event, and sat down with Ted Childs for an intimate staff training.
Our focus in April will shift to the Religious Diversity in Health Care program as we gear up for several events. However, one of our presentations at the Association of Jewish Aging Services (AJAS) 2010 Conference is an interesting example of a time when elements of both the Health Care and Workplace programs come into play.
Nursing homes and residential facilities have a twofold responsibility – they are responsible for caring for their residents and they are responsible for managing their staff. This means that facility administrators must address they ways in which religion affects health care and the workplace. If this isn’t challenging enough on its own, this has become ever more complicated for religiously-identified residential settings in particular because they are serving an increasing number of residents and hiring an increasing number of staff from who may or may not follow a religious tradition or practice one different from that of the facility. We look forward to sharing our insights on these issues at the AJAS conference and if you are a reader attending the conference we look forward to seeing you there! We promise to report back with participant anecdotes and reactions.
On a separate note, I listened to this great piece by Sarah Kate Kramer on WYNC the other morning about cultural barriers at New York City’s hospitals. You can check it out here. Don’t forget to look at the interesting interactive features as well!