First Steps Kent does and has always felt the anguish of injustice for people of color. That is why we intently focus on creating lasting change starting with our youngest children. The hope of our world and community lies with these young children.

First Steps Kent is committed to advancing equity and inclusion so that all children grow up healthy, safe, and strong. Equity is everyone's job.

Promoting equity is critical to truly making a difference in the lives of young children and their families. To that end, First Steps Kent makes a conscious and explicit effort to:

• Ensure our work focuses on the elimination of disparities;
• Educate ourselves and others to improve understanding of explicit bias and the historical context of inequities, which is vital to recognizing and dismantling barriers;
• Critically examine our policies and practices using a racial equity lens and work to ensure that both their intent and impact will promote fairness and equity;
• Model as an organization the changes we want to see throughout our community and advocate for the elimination of institutional and structural racism in systems we influence; and
• Serve our community’s children through active engagement of their families, listening to their needs, understanding their strengths.