Sharing Web Resources

Through the course material and from colleagues’ posts, I realized that I am interested in learning more about African American and how to support them in the way that culturally relevant to them. I was reflecting myself of the program I am working at, I found that when we plan for culturally relevant events or activities we always considered the minority like Asian and Hispanic groups, but we missed the African America group. I asked myself why? The reason is we considered them as American because of they speak English. Some of the African American family told me that they  do not like people label them as African American because they consider themselves as American and they are not from Africa, they prefer people call them Black. I found that they do not participate in our Family Committee Meeting or other school event. Therefore, I want chose to put more attention on African American cultures and chose the web National Black Child Development Institute (NBCDI) (NBCDI, 2013a).

 The mission of NBCDI is “to improve and advance the quality of life for Black children and their families through education and advocacy”. It has over 38 years of history.  It also launched with Blac Women’s Commnity Development Foundation and as “a national advocacy group to improve life circumstances of Black child through policy change” (NBCDI, 2013b).

I found one of their programs “Parent Empowerment Project” (PEP) attracted to me, as I want to learn ways to engage the Black family.  This PEP was initially decided to work with parents in a 3 years demonstration project to develop curriculum and tested to use in setting all across the country, then when it improved to PEP 2.0, it became a parenting curriculum based on the reflection from the parents and family facilitators. The PEP is a “ comprehensive, culturally-relevant, self-discovery curriculum for parents and guardians to improve their effectiveness as the primary positive influence in the lives of their children” (NBCDI, 2013c). Additionally, it “empowers parents to succeed and reinforces parents’ sense of pride in themselves, their community and their history” (NBCDI, 2013b). The program supports parent to learn what is the best for their children, know best what they need to be better parents, given the proper information and resources to support parent to make the best choice for their children and etc. The PEP curriculum focused on 6 topics:

Topic 1: Reflections

Topic 2: Health and Wellness

Topic 3: Child Growth and Development

Topic 4: Positive Guidance

Topic 5: Literacy

Topic 6: Transition to Early Care & Education

This program seems like a great guidance for me to find resources and specialist to support me to build a trust relationship with Black families. First, we need to be positive with their comments and ensure the family engagement activities reflect on their cultural or need. We could ask parent to reflect on what their needs / goals for their children. Then from there, we could create topics that they are most interested to learn, also empower them to make best choices for their children by showing them the positive outcome.

                NBCDI also pointed out our current policies at the federal, state, district and school levels rarely provide sufficient support to educators or parents to promote family engagement, especially to engage a diverse range of families. They also “do not possess the depth of cultural relevance that allows the curriculum to fully resonate with Black parents, in particular” (NBCDI, 2013b). Therefore, it is critical for us to put more effort on family engagement by working with local community members who have deep understanding and experience working with diverse groups. This is also my goal this year to reinforce family engagement particularly empower African American families to participate.  

References

NBCDI (2013a). Retrieved from: http://www.nbcdi.org

NBCDI (2013b). Retrieved from: http://www.nbcdi.org/who-we-are/who-we-are

NBCDI (2013c). Retrieved from: http://www.nbcdi.org/what-we-do/parent-empowerment-project)