According to the World Economic Forum, one of the most effective ways companies can honor Black History Month is to “commit to or strengthen diversity, equity and inclusion.” Here at YourCoach, we’re endlessly committed to providing more opportunity, accessibility and inclusivity within the world of health coaching. This means we approach every touchpoint with DE&I in mind, not just during exceptionally important national observances, like Black History Month, but always.
We’d be remiss if we didn’t acknowledge this month, especially, that there’s a critical need for more diverse representation within health and wellbeing at large and within health coaching, specifically. At the educational level, studies of medical textbooks have shown that only 4.5% of images showed dark skin tones. At the occupational level, recent data also reveals only 5.7% of physicians in the U.S. identify as Black or African American.
Most importantly, research has shown that patients prefer a doctor who shares their same race and ethnicity, likely due to the prevalence of implicit biases and lack of cultural competency within the medical field. One thing is clear—the population of medical professionals does not reflect the population it serves. Even though health coaching is a non-clinical service, it’s no exception (some data estimates the percent of health coaches who identify as Black or African American as around 8.6%).
We’d like to take this opportunity to reaffirm our commitment to improving diversity, equity and inclusion within health coaching and through everything we do.
Offer tools for coaches to upskill their intercultural competencies.
We’re proud to offer every coach we work with access to Violet, the first-ever health equity platform. Our partnership with Violet provides services that both benchmark and upskill intercultural competencies for participating coaches using its proprietary framework.
Prioritize DE&I among our validated and verified cohort of contracted coaches.
We’re grateful to validate and verify countless talented coaches who we contract with to support our ongoing Industry Partnerships. It’s our goal to ensure our cohort of contracted coaches is exceptionally diverse and we are continually keeping this in mind as we grow these relationships. Not only that, but we ensure every coach that contracts with YourCoach has access to ongoing DE&I resources because of our partnership with Violet as strong cultural competency is one of our core values.
Provide opportunities to uplift others on their journey to become health coaches.
We created the Rita & Gene Presman Memorial Scholarship Program to mitigate barriers to entry for anyone who wants to become a health & wellbeing coach but might need a little support along the way—with our team covering the full cost of the exam fees and study resources to maximize success. We strongly prioritize commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion within our scholarship application process and are proud to leverage this opportunity to improve diversity and cultural competency within health and wellbeing coaching.
Part of our mission to provide health coaching to the global population means we must continually ensure coaching is accessible and inclusive and that the population of health coaches reflects the diversity of those who benefit from its services. We’re continuously learning and growing and while these are just a few ways we plan to continue our DE&I efforts, we welcome open dialogue and regular feedback for how we can continue to do better for the health coaching community and the broader community we serve.