Winston-Salem nonprofit receives health disparities grant

The Rev. Willard Bass, founder and director of the Institute for Dismantling Racism.

The Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust has donated $241,000 to the Institute for Dismantling Racism in an initiative designed to eliminate disparities in healthcare outcomes for poor and needy residents of Winston-Salem, Asheville and Fayetteville.

“It’s an affirmation of our work in the community and across the state,” said the Rev. Willard Bass, founder and director of the Institute for Dismantling Racism. “The key to the work is building relationships. It’s all about understanding patients from the inside — their ways of life and learning about their culture — so doctors can give very specific care.”

The Institute for Dismantling Racism (IDR) has been working closely with the Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust for the past four years, Bass said, and the first step in addressing healthcare disparities will include inviting upwards of 30 local healthcare practitioners and administrators to a three-day training session.

“That provides the backdrop for healthcare providers to see that healthcare disparities come out of a historical model,” Bass said. “This is targeted to help [doctors and nurses] understand there are some behaviors in the way people live their life that affects their healthcare. It’s never been the process in the past to recognize the issues that impact a person in their life.”
The model created by IDR will be pilot-tested over the next two years.

The nonprofit will work within the local healthcare communities of Winston-Salem, Asheville and Fayetteville “to build a critical mass of healthcare professionals within an organization who will be able to move an institution along a transformational process that will eliminate health disparities among those whom the institution serves,” according to a press release.

Founded in 2004, IDR defines its mission as “deconstructing institutional racism and building an effective pluralistic society through organizing and education.” The group has created seven anti-racism teams in various Forsyth County organizations and provided training to more than 700 people.