top of page

Civil Rights Training

Civil Rights are Everyone's Rights

​

Civil Rights is the term used to describe the advancement of equality for all people regardless of race, sex, age, disability, national origin, religion, or certain other characteristics. Historically, the "Civil Rights Movement" referred to efforts toward achieving true equality for African Americans in all facets of society.

​

Protecting civil rights is an essential part of the democratic values of the United States.  Civil rights are an expansive and significant set of rights that are designed to protect individuals from unfair treatment; they are the rights of individuals to receive equal treatment in a number of settings -- including education, employment, housing, public accommodations, and more -- and are based on certain legally-protected characteristics.

EFAP/USDA Program Partner Site Requirements

In accordance with Federal law and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) National Policy Memorandum Policy No. FD-113, it is prohibited to discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, age, disability, religion or political beliefs. TEFAP (aka USDA) programs are to ensure that benefits are made available to all eligible people in a non-discriminatory manner. USDA Food Commodities are considered federal funding based upon the value of the monetary value of the commodities, hence all sub-recipient partner organizations receiving these commodities are required to demonstrate compliance with federal civil rights requirements.

Training Requirement Overview

All partner agencies are required to provide a mandatory civil rights training for site staff and volunteers delivering services to clients, and this training must be conducted annually for each site staff and/or volunteer. Upon completion of civil rights training, a “Certificate of Completion’ will be kept on file at each partner site for every trainee for a period of 3-years. Hence, an individual that has volunteered at a distribution for the 3-consecutive years should have 3 civil rights ‘Certificate of Completions’ on file- 1 certificate for each of the 3-years that person has been involved with the program.

​

The site director/coordinator will keep their certificate on file in their resource binder and upload or forward a copy to CAPSBC each year.

​

CAPSBC has developed partner site resources and a system for documenting and responding to client complaints on the basis of perceived or actual discrimination. In the event of a potential client civil rights complaint, forward the completed ‘Civil Rights Complaint Form’ to CAPSBC immediately. Each partner organization is issued a ‘Civil Rights Policy, Training, and Resource’ binder upon completion of the site coordinator/director training. You can download additional or replacement forms below. Please note that the document number corresponds to the index tab number in your resource binder.

bottom of page