LSVT Global is LOUD. LSVT Global is BIG.

LSVT Global grew out of a deep commitment to develop scientifically rigorous speech and movement treatments that improve the lives of people with Parkinson’s disease (PD) and others with neuromotor conditions across the lifespan. Early on, we made it our Mission to train clinicians globally to achieve excellence in providing these therapies to the people we serve. This statement is an affirmation of LSVT Global’s commitment to ensuring that our actions reflect the value we place on diversity, equity, and inclusion at all levels of our organization.

We understand that central to LSVT Global’s Mission is the conviction that our path to excellence is achievable when actively seeking and warmly welcoming diversity. We celebrate every person and honor their differences in race, ethnicity, color, caste, citizenship or immigration status, national origin, gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, age, religion, disability, neurodiversity status or military status, and other social group identities that uniquely define us. 

Valuing our diversity will require understanding it in a deeper way where employees, faculty, clinicians, clients, and their support networks will feel included. We will create and foster an environment where people can express or talk about their identities, lived experiences, needs, and diverse ideas. We will keep these conversations open, dynamic, and ongoing, with policies in place to ensure that dialogue occurs without fear of discrimination or retaliation. LSVT Global recognizes that, to champion long-term positive change, there will be times to listen, and times to unequivocally act in solidarity. 

LSVT Global leadership will lead by example and foster the change in attitude and culture that we envision in our global organization. We, therefore, propose a Senior Diversity Officer who reports to the Board of Directors on this agenda and whose key responsibility is advancing our work on DEI.

Words need to be supported by actions. Over the last year, LSVT Global began to review and revise the extensive materials library to ensure that language and imagery reflect the diversity we aspire to represent. We initiated the task of surveying our membership to better understand their needs. Finally, we are creating training modules that model for our clinicians cultural responsiveness in action during LSVT BIG and LSVT LOUD interventions.

While these initial steps signal our readiness to address DEI at all levels of LSVT Global, we are working on future initiatives that will reflect our long-term commitment to this goal:

     ● We will actively increase the number of clinicians from underrepresented groups so that aspiring clinicians see themselves represented in our LSVT community.  
     ● We commit to creating LSVT LOUD and LSVT BIG scholarships for students and clinicians from underrepresented groups and offering these LSVT scholars’ mentorship.
     ● We will work to improve access to culturally responsive intervention for clients from vulnerable, underrepresented, and underserved groups.
     ● We will publish outcome data on these initiatives as evidence of our progress.

While we have begun the work, we recognize that there is more to do to advance our DEI initiatives. We are committed to listening, reflecting, learning, and growing as needed to stay true to our mission and values that will show our BIG and LOUD long-term commitment to this work.

If you would like to share any comments or questions regarding our DEI initiatives, please direct them to our CEO, Dr. Cynthia Fox at cynthia.fox@lsvtglobal.com. We welcome your feedback.