As part of Phase Six of NATA’s Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Access (DEIA) Response Plan, each NATA committee, commission and council was tasked with developing three to five actionable items that support one or more of the six NATA DEIA Commitments.
In this blog post, which is part of an ongoing series highlighting these efforts, NATA Intercollegiate Council for Sports Medicine (ICSM) Chair Brant Berkstresser, MS, LAT, ATC, outlines the ICSM’s actionable items, what the committee hopes to achieve and how members can get involved.
What are your committee’s three to five DEIA actionable items, and why were they selected?
We have done numerous initiatives to support NATA's DEIA Response Plan. We have made a conscious effort to promote more inclusion and diversity through the ICSM membership, including:
- Added an additional seat to the ICSM representing historical Black colleges and universities.
- ICSM collaborated with EDAC on a town hall promoting diversity, equity, inclusion and access in collegiate sports medicine departments.
- ICSM collected various transgender statements/policies from different organizations for collegiate athletic trainers to utilize in developing, reviewing and/or revising their current protocols.
- ICSM sponsored the session “Debunking Race Based Medicine” presented by Jamie DeRollo, MBA, DAT, ATC, during the 73rd NATA Clinical Symposia & AT Expo.
- We’ve finalized a bias action plan project that provides educational information to the collegiate athletic trainer and their institution on how to educate, prevent and care for individuals following a bias incident.
Tell us about the development process that led your committee to these actionable items.
We discussed each of these items within our Council meetings and created different working groups to complete the projects.
How will the actionable items you’ve outlined impact NATA’s members?
The overall goal is that these will positively impact not just NATA, but also ICSM and the student athletes we serve. As we educate our members on these initiatives, it transcends to the patients we interact with on a daily basis. Hopefully, this increases our clinicians’ knowledge of our patients’ different experiences, which positively impacts the relationships and care we deliver to our patients.
How do you hope your committee’s actionable items will contribute to NATA’s overall efforts to improve DEIA?
Overall, it improves our diversity within our membership. We are still very low with underrepresented minorities within the athletic training profession. Although I've made a conscious effort to recruit minorities as a hiring manager, it’s been very challenging to hire so my sports medicine department fully represents our student athlete population.
Where are you in completing your three to five actionable items?
We have completed the three to five actionable items, but will continue to support this mission with more items in the future.
How can your fellow NATA members help bring these actionable items to life?
By incorporating these in our daily lives through policies and/or how we go about our professional duties within our places of employment.
Where can members learn more about your committee’s DEIA efforts?
All ICSM materials and town hall discussions are promoted through NATA’s communication channels, including Range of Motion, the College/University Professional Interests email newsletter and social media. All written documents can be found on the College/University resource webpage.
