MilSect
Military Coaching and DEI for Companies and Professionals
Not even lying
Beyond Military Friendly... We are Military Inclusive
MilSect, LLC is a military spouse, black, queer, and mom owned business. Deja Joi is a leading expert on military inclusivity, DEI strategic planning that incorporates the military experience, public speaking, and understanding of how to bring a company beyond friendly.
Military spouses and family members are faced with certain career and educational setbacks due to the military. While this is known, companies tend to see ‘military friendly’ as hiring the transitioning veteran and not truly understanding the family dynamic or the veteran spouse. And if they do look at the military family, do they understand the intersectionality and diversity of the military family?
Spouses typically promoted in the media are not usually, BIPOC, veteran spouses, male military spouses, dual military spouses, neurodivergent, LGBTQIA+, immigrants, etc. Which begs the question, how inclusive is military friendly? Especially considering, the military and its community is the most diverse community in America.
Many know what is to be military friendly, but what does it mean to be military inclusive?
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Our Mission, Vision, Purpose, and Clientele
The mission of MilSect, LLC is to provide expert training and public speaking engagements to train individuals. Increasing their understanding, building, and strengthening their DEI professional knowledge to increase competency and unique needs of military spouses and military community.
Our vision is to see that every military connected person is not only included but feels like they belong by ensuring that DEI professionals are in place that empower and uplift the military family throughout military service. We are wanting to get beyond the surface level of friendly and help do the work of inclusivity.
Our purpose is to represent BIPOC Military/Veterans and Spouses, Immigrant Military/Veterans and Spouses, LGBTQIA Military/Veterans and Spouses, Spouses and Military/Veterans Members with varying abilities, Minority Spouses and Military/Veterans, Spouses and Veterans with Children, Historically excluded Military family members and Veterans that are less often seen, heard, and included in military spouse or veteran initiatives.
We work with individuals who work at nonprofits, VSOs, higher education institutions, corporate, government contractors, small business and all areas in between.
Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.
Meet Our Founder
Working in the military, veteran, and military spouse spaces for the betterment of a decade has given DejaJoi such insight through a DEI lense. Throughout that time, she made it a mission to build and maintain strategic business plans and create a more military inclusive culture. This includes historically underrepresented communities within the military space. Not only has she built DEI programming and curriculums from the ground up, she has helped with laying the foundation of DEI strategic planning for a multitude of entities.
Every career path and personal endeavor, DEI and advocacy has been front and center. Whether it was advocating for her maternal health in the UK, advocating for equitable hiring practices and management, speaking on the lack of understanding of marginalized spouses, speaking up when she was discriminated against, or noting the lack of understand of what DEI or intersectionality is; she has and will always be the one to ask the hard questions and answer them.
She’s created programming, events, and staff changes from the ground up and collaborated with Rutgers Center for Minority Serving Institutions, HBCU Connect, NASA’s MSI program, and more. She boasts over five years of experience in DEI both in the US and UK. She’s worked in advocacy for many minority communities ranging from racial, to mental health, LGBTQIA+, military, pregnant people, and disability equity.
Joi served as the DEI Lead at Student Veterans of America where she lead their MSI and DEI programming. She also has spoken on MainStage at their National Conference and hosted DEI breakout sessions. Joi has spoken at over thirty events. Joi served as an Army Resource Officer where she spearheaded a program of educational, career, and wellness resources for the Army Reserve of North Carolina. She served as the point of contact for state resources for 11,000+ Army Reservists and their families. Joi has led the Suicide Prevention Program for the North Carolina National Guard as their Program Manager. She was the primary POC for briefings, investigations, liaising with commanding officers, and was charged with constructing a more efficient prevention program for the Guard. She was a member of the board for My Military and Veteran Resource Collation in North Carolina, worked side by side with law enforcement officials to support Veteran Crisis Intervention trainings, and volunteered with the National Alliance on Mental Illness—which included leading a Family-to-Family class and speaking at state conferences. Further, she served as the first military spouse career manager for Blue Star Families in the Baltimore area. Supporting military spouses and their careers initiated a stimulation of the local economy which is currently valued at more than one million dollars. Each of these programs she focused on the diversity of the military population, equity in hiring, and inclusive strategic planning with companies and military entities.
Joi created MilSect LLC through a wealth of experience and knowledge. She holds two Masters: one in Forensic Psychology and another in Military and Combat Psychology. Raised a first generation American, while Joi has not served, her mission is to serve those who have and their families.
Joi is a proud military spouse with three sons and one daughter all who aid in her resilient and tenacious spirit. In her free time, she enjoys the beach, reading, cooking, watching her son play ice hockey, and spending time with friends and family.
Beyond Friendly, Inclusive
The full story behind why we say ‘inclusive’
MilSect LLC utilizes the term ‘military inclusivity’ or ‘military inclusion at the root of its purpose. However, the term ‘inclusion’ or ‘inclusivity’ deserves to be understood from a broad perspective and pinpointed one, such as when speaking about military inclusivity.
The term inclusion by definition means including or covering all the services, facilities, or items normally expected or required or not excluding any of the parties or groups involved in something. In the diversity, equity, and inclusion space; inclusion means to involve all aspects of a person in an entity allowing that person to be their authentic self and feeling as though they can contribute, meet the needs, and feel as though they belong in the conversation of the entity as their true and whole self.
Involve. Authentic. Contribute. Belong. True and whole self.
Take a Break
Before continuing, ponder those terms.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Let’s continue
Studies show that when someone feels included in any entity they are involved with, they are more likely to stay, be more productive, and have a better time with the entity. Whether it be work, church, school, the military, government, or traveling abroad, the feeling of inclusion’s common denominator is that the individual feels better. This is paramount in creating a military inclusive culture.
What is military inclusive?
Being military inclusive is beyond friendly. It is beyond hiring. It is beyond Yellow Ribbon and tax breaks. It is allowing a military connected individual not to feel as though they need to hide that they are military connected. But also understanding there are intersections of this person outside of their military experience.
The term friendly is one that is used to show stats of companies who hire veterans; however, these actions have overshadowed the true issues within the military community. Studies show that the way to truly help with curbing suicide and under/unemployment is by creating inclusive communities, campuses, and workspaces. While there are many companies and nonprofit looking to lower suicides, increase employment, and military/community interactions there are no organizations working with them to create inclusive cultures that are willing and able to help the entire military community. MilSect LLC does just that. When companies and institutions consult with MilSect LLC they are accessing expert advice on how to create an inclusive culture for the military community and not just hire or attract veteran talent. This inclusivity will lead to better employment for spouses, better understanding for the military veteran community, and fill the gaps that ‘military friendly’ creates.
Take a moment to think about your intersections and how they affect your experiences. These intersections and experiences can be further hindered if you are part of a minority group.
Race. Culture. Sexual Orientation. Gender. Marital Status. Marriage type. Religion. Age. Parents. Caregiver. Disability. Military Affiliation. Socio Economic Status. Immigrants. First Generation. Pregnancy status. Neurotypical or neurodiverse.
This list can continue and even involve hair texture. Each intersection in the pie of a person creates a vastly different experience from another. Accepting each intersection where they meet creates a more inviting environment.
Services
Why MilSect LLC?
MilSect, LLC aims to help DEI professionals at higher education institutions, government, non-profit, corporate, and more go beyond being ‘military friendly’ and be truly Military Inclusive. This starts with understanding the entire military community and what the whole community, not just the transitioning veteran needs.
MilSect LLC is the only company that provides expert strategic training to support professionals in understanding, building, and strengthening their DEI efforts to increase competency and the unique needs of military spouses and military community. Through getting to know each client we help them to understand the uniqueness of the military community including spouses, immigrants, queer, caregivers, and more allowing the client be a certified Military Inclusive DEI professional.
Questions to gauge current military inclusion?
What does an active duty spouse need? What does a reserve or guard member need? What does a veteran spouse need? Do we only see military spouses as spouses who are women and married to men who are currently serving? How diverse is our current military population? What does a caregiver need? What are company/institution best practices during a PCS? What is a PCS? How can entities help immigrants that are military connected? Are you available OCONUS? Leave policies. PTO. What is the military culture among employees or professors? How many members of the military community are part of your entity? How accepting is your entity? How much do they know about the military community? Are people scared to tell others they are a spouse or caregiver? Does your application only ask if someone is a veteran or does it include those who are military connected? Do those who are not veterans feel included/seen/or like they belong in/at veteran centric activities? Have we asked a spouse when they PCS next? Do we question ‘jumpy’ resumes? And more.
What is in it for us?
Each of the areas and more are areas that can be reviewed, analyzed, revamped with a SWOT analysis, trained on, and implemented.
This project design starts with finding out what the individual knows. Interviews, reviewing their current knowledge of the military community, military culture, how they include the community, microaggressions, understanding of the intersectionality of the community, and how they are currently being inclusive and not merely friendly to the military and veteran community. From there, training is conducted to fill the gaps and new strategic plans are made. These plans are focused on diversity, equity, inclusion, and military cultural competency to be sure that the entity is working in its best fashion to be the truly military inclusive entity it can be. It is essential to note that each plan is personalized and will help each company individually. This is not a one-size fits all approach. Due to my background in psychology and person-centered planning, I believe that individual professional centered planning will help address the needs of the company they are working for and the military community best. Additionally, aiding with retention, hiring, and attracting the military connected community will be addressed. This data will be collected during each process and will help with the viability of being truly military inclusive. This will be a top-down operation and buy-in from all parties is paramount to MilSect LLC.
How is it done?
Each professional will have a time span of 6-12 months, minimum, with MilSect LLC before graduating to a certified “Military Inclusive” DEI Professional. This will be set in different phases. Phase one is understanding where the individual currently is, phase two is planning, phase three is implementation, phase four is any upgrades that need to be implemented, the fifth phase is a review of the return on investment, and the final phase is graduation. There will always be mentorship between the professional and MilSect LLC. Any further training, conferences, press releases, curriculum updates, licensed materials, public speaking engagements, or updates to strategic plannings etc.; MilSect will be ready and available with additional monthly fees if a contract is not established.