Strengthening the Black Village

Support for foster and systems-impacted youth

Expand existing project, program, or initiative (expanding and continuing ongoing, successful work)

Children, especially Black children are entering foster care/out-of-home care at disproportionate rates and being removed from their villages of care. Social service agencies admit to being under-resourced and unable to do the work of strengthening, reunifying, and nurturing the Black family alone. Our children and families are falling through the gaps. Children are being physically, emotionally, spiritually, intellectually and socially disadvantaged and traumatized. Families who do not have just access to counseling, preventative and ongoing medical care, quality education, adequate nutrition, parenting classes and employment opportunities are stuck in systems of oppression and injustice, often without the tools to rise above. Further, extended family, close neighbors and others of identical geographic, ethnic and social location of children and youth needing out-of-home placement are often not considered and are not being trained to fill the gaps in care.

Strengthening the Black Village (SBV) is a partnership of churches, community entities and social service agencies who work, under the leadership of a Board, to identify the needs of our diverse families and meet those needs according to our collective gifts, talents and treasures. The needs of system-impacted families are numerous, and in time, our scope and network are stretching to meet a wider array of needs. In SBV’s first years, we focused on offering parenting training to parents who are in the process of reunification with their children or who may be at-risk of child removal and wish to take action to prevent removal. We use the Effective Black Parenting Training curriculum, certified through the DC Children's Trust Fund. We have identified a need and desire for father mentoring and support, and offer this service so fathers are affirmed, empowered and equipped to care for children. We propose this solution: we join in a unified effort with the Black Church, the United Methodist Church, community partners, and like-minded people to provide for the wholistic care of our children, youth and families. Some efforts have already been made to support these populations. In 2023, our 7 volunteers served 66 families in our community. With your support, training and resources, we can do so much more. Our goal for this next year is to start a Family Resource Center, providing a intersection for creative care in our village.

What makes us unique is that we are a small, faith-based organization founded and led by a woman of vision who is a former foster youth with a visual impairment. I’m guessing these are unique things I bring to the leadership arena. African proverbs and wisdom teachings are a core part of our effective black parenting curriculum and other programs we develop as well. And I don’t know of any agencies right in the immediate neighborhood doing this same work with the same focus. We are making a difference in the lives of children and families now. As our village strengthens and grows, more partners will join in and our children will learn and become who they are truly meant to be with our love and care.

In 2023, our 7 volunteers served 66 families in our community. We keep records of attendance. We do pre- and post-course evaluation of the participants. We also do post-course surveys to evaluate the course experience. Students are encouraged to leave online reviews of the class. For the Family Resource Center, we have a stakeholder survey to identify their needs for the future, e.g. for families, community members, social workers and church members. We continue to develop other helpful measures as we learn.