2026 DEI Empowerment Conference Session Schedule

Speaker: Justice G. Helen Whitener (she/her)

Ways to Watch: Live on Zoom

Recording available for playback through August 31, 2026.

Speaker: Dr. Raedene Copeland, Ph.D. (she/her)

Ways to Watch: Live on Zoom

Recording available for playback through August 31, 2026

Learning Objectives:

Participants will be able to:

• Identify the hidden strengths of outsider identity, including the ability to recognize exclusionary patterns, adapt across contexts, and detect belonging gaps.
• Analyze credibility gaps that impact diasporic and migrant employees and identify strategies to rebuild leadership credibility.
• Apply influence strategies that outsiders use to navigate complex organizational dynamics and advance equity goals.
• Reframe their personal migration narrative as a leadership asset rather than an obstacle to overcome.
• Develop leadership practices rooted in the CIC framework that transform outsider insight into insider influence.

J Israel Greene (he/him)

Ways to Watch: ONLY Live on Zoom

Learning Objectives:

• Identify how location, movement, and lived experience influence perceptions of belonging and access in workplaces and communities.
• Reflect on their own assumptions related to place, migration, and background, and how those assumptions shape interactions with others.
• Describe how bias can show up differently across geographic, organizational, and social contexts.
• Recognize why belonging may feel uneven across teams or systems based on proximity, power, and place.
• Apply at least one practical strategy to foster belonging across differences in background, experience, or location.

Speaker: Dr. Tricia Diamond (she/her)

Ways to Watch: Live on Zoom

Learning Objectives:

• Participants will identify common forms of workplace discrimination that migrant professionals face, including credentialism and accent-based bias.
• Participants will apply a systematic documentation framework for tracking patterns of retaliation and inequitable treatment.
• Participants will analyze how excellence can be weaponized to isolate migrant professionals who advocate for equity.
• Participants will practice building coalitions for protection when formal HR systems fail to respond to discrimination complaints.
• Participants will develop a personal action plan for protecting themselves while continuing to advance equity in their workplace.

Speaker: Herminia Esqueda (she/her/ella)

Ways to Watch: Live on Zoom

Recording available for playback through August 31, 2026

Learning Objectives:

• Participants will identify the biases embedded in the US immigration system
• Participants will identify the reasons why Latine families settled in Eastern Washington
• Participants will understand the impact of the Latine Community in Washington state
• Participants will reflect on stories of Belonging

Speakers: Dania Otto & Nicole Chen (she/her)

Ways to Watch: Live on Zoom

Learning Objectives:

• How to identify harm.
• How to establish trust within a culturally new community.
• How to minimize assimilation and embrace cultural adaption on both sides.
• How to support and engage with limited English proficiency communities.

Speakers: Amira Caluya (they/them), Aren Sparck. Candice Wilson, & Kathy Pierre (she/her)

Ways to Watch: ONLY Live on Zoom

Learning Objectives:

• Participants will understand why federally recognized Tribes are sovereign governments, not stakeholders, community organizations or “special populations”, and how this changes expectations around consultation, timelines, authority, and accountability in state behavioral and public health work.
• Participants will learn how sustained relationships, honoring commitments are essential to meaningful Tribal engagement.
• Participants will recognize common structural barriers within state agencies, such as rigid timelines, procurement rules, and data practices, and explore how flexibility and internal advocacy can reduce harm and improve collaboration.
• Participants will reflect on how Tribal expertise, cultural practices, and community-defined wellness approaches strengthen behavioral health and public health outcomes when they are respected and resourced appropriately.
• Participants will examine what Executive Order 25-10 signals, and how state staff play a critical role in translating high-level commitments into day-to-day practice, accountability, and culture change.

Speaker: Denise Miño (she/her)

Ways to Watch: Live on Zoom

Learning Objectives:

By the end of this session, participants will be able to:

• Recognize how identity, place, and lived experience influence emotional intelligence, bias, preferences, and workplace behavior.
• Examine how social standards and cultural expectations shape perceptions of professionalism, belonging, and “fit” in the workplace.
• Reflect on how experiences of migration, relocation, or displacement affect engagement, trust, and well-being at work.
• Identify inclusive practices that support belonging and authenticity without requiring personal disclosure or assimilation.
• Apply identity awareness as a professional skill that strengthens equity-centered collaboration and public service.

Speaker: Dei’Marlon “D” Scisney (he/him)

Ways to Watch: Live on Zoom

Recording available for playback through August 31, 2026

Learning Objectives:

After this session, participants will be able to:

• Identify how geographic location, migration, and displacement shape access to opportunity, public services, and a sense of belonging across urban, suburban, and rural communities in Washington State.
• Analyze place-based data to uncover structural inequities, while critically assessing data quality, gaps, assumptions, and potential sources of bias that may affect equity outcomes.
• Apply a practical, place-centered framework that integrates location, population movement, and lived experience into policy development, program design, and service delivery.
• Describe ethical and responsible data practices for working with historically marginalized communities, including strategies that center dignity, context, and community trust.
• Translate insights from place-based and migration-informed data into clear, actionable steps that strengthen equity, accessibility, and responsiveness within their agency’s day-to-day work.

Naghmana Sherazi (she/her)

Ways to Watch: Live on Zoom

Learning Objectives:

Session Goals

• Illustrate how statewide policy infrastructure can advance belonging and safety across urban, rural, border, and mixed-status communities.
• Highlight the link between place, movement, and equity, especially for immigrants, refugees, LGBTQ+, and disability communities navigating federal enforcement.
• Share early insights from the Subcabinet’s cross-agency work and grounding in community-raised concerns (e.g., community letters, data breaches, detention impacts, limited access).
• Demonstrate belonging cultivated through coordinated response, transparency, and community-centered design.

Outcomes

• Participants leave with actionable frameworks to apply EO 25-09 principles within their organizations
• Increased awareness of the relationship between location, identity, and barriers to access
• A shared understanding of how belonging is “designed,” not accidental

Speakers: Sam Fennell (he/him) & Sawyer Tuttle (they/them)

Ways to Watch: Live on Zoom

Learning Objectives:

• Describe key findings from the Washington State LGBTQ Commission’s statewide LGBTQ survey related to belonging, safety, and access to resources.
• Analyze how geographic location (coastal, urban, rural, mountain, and desert regions) shapes LGBTQ lived experiences across Washington State.
• Explain current LGBTQ migration trends into Washington State and identify factors influencing why LGBTQ people choose to move to or remain in Washington.
• Identify disparities and equity gaps experienced by LGBTQ communities based on place and region.
• Apply insights from the data to inform equity-centered policies, programs, or practices within their agencies or organizations.

Speakers: Audrey Morford (she/her) & Laura Devol (she/her)

Ways to Watch: Live on Zoom

Learning Objectives:

• Participants will be able to identify common biases about independent housing and employment for people with disabilities
• Participants will be able to define the dignity of risk concepts
• Participants will be able to identify internal and external biases related to dignity of risk and strategies for overcoming them in policy, procedure and service delivery practices.

Speakers: Alicia Stensland (they/them) & Seth Alexander (he/him)

Ways to Watch: ONLY Live on Zoom

Learning Objectives:

• Participants will understand how transgender rights are restricted in certain places in the US, regardless of place of residence
• They will hear lived experiences about “”””go-bags””””: transgender people parents of transgender children preparing to run away from their homes to ensure safety and access to necessary health care
• Participants will understand how these laws function similarly to redlining transgender people to certain states and regions in the United States
• They will consider their own privilege in traveling and living where they may want in the United States compared to transgender people and historically marginalized people

Speaker: Dr. Kia Everett (she/her}

Ways to Watch: Live on Zoom

Learning Objectives:

• Identify how trauma, displacement, and lived experience influence emotional regulation, mental health, and a sense of belonging across diverse communities.
• Reflect on and assess their own assumptions and biases that may impact psychological safety, inclusion, and equity in personal, professional, or community settings.
• Apply inclusive, trauma-aware self-regulation strategies that support well-being and empowerment, particularly for individuals from historically marginalized or migrant-impacted communities.
• Recognize and value lived experiences and community narratives as essential knowledge for creating environments of belonging, safety, and emotional balance.

Speaker: Shaude’ Moore (she/her)

Ways to Watch: Live on Zoom

Learning Objectives:

By the end of this session, attendees will be able to:

• Understand how location and migration shape equity and belonging by examining the historical, social, and policy forces that influence who can remain, return, or thrive in place-based communities.
• Recognize “home” as both a physical and relational concept, understanding how access, power, and community voice determine belonging beyond geography alone.
• Apply place-based leadership strategies that center stewardship, accountability, and community preservation while adapting to demographic and economic change.
• Identify practical approaches for creating inclusive environments that honor long-term residents while welcoming newcomers, ensuring equity across shifting populations.
• Reflect on their own leadership role in shaping belonging, gaining tools to intentionally design systems, spaces, and policies that support equitable outcomes regardless of where people begin or how they arrive.

Speakers: “A” (Amanda) Espinosa-Aguilar, PhD (she/her), Elaine Stefanowicz (she/her) & Kim Harmon (she/her)

Ways to Watch: ONLY Live on Zoom

Learning Objectives:

• Drawing on the lived experiences of DIN panelists, recognize how ableism and inaccessibility disenfranchises everyone, especially workers with disabilities, preventing everyone from full participation in workplace life.
• Explore what it means to feel “at home” at work — and how universal design, inclusive culture and informal accommodations can transform a workplace into a space where everyone truly belongs.
• Identify how allyship and advocacy help build more accessible spaces and leave with concrete suggestions for making your workplace a more welcoming home for all of your colleagues.
• Understand how DIN serves as both an anchor and community for state employees with disabilities. Learn how Business Resource Groups, like DIN, can help drive the systemic changes needed to make belonging a reality for everyone.