An interactive program in Pittsburgh is helping primary caregivers better support their Black children, navigate challenges like experiences of discrimination and improve intergenerational mental wellness.
The Parenting While Black program is made up of eight group-based sessions focused on four key topics: promoting positive racial identity, helping children cope with experiences of discrimination, school and home-based educational involvement as Black parents and intergenerational mental wellness and racial stress coping.
The curriculum was developed by University of Pittsburgh Professor Dr. Jay Huguley. After a brief delay due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the program got started in 2021. The current program is a collaboration between Pitt, Homewood Children’s Village and Awaken Pittsburgh.
“How do you talk to your children about dealing with racism, self-image issues, negative stereotypes? We weren’t seeing those in the parenting resources that we knew about so we wanted to bring it to the families directly,” Huguley said. “We’re turning the tide of the challenges we face, doing the best we can helping the folks here be resilient in the face of structures that are sometimes unjust but all we can do is keep moving forward.”
The sessions are proving to be a source of community for participants, as they find guidance from experts and the other parents in the group. Childcare is provided and dinner is too.
“As a parent, you don’t have all the tools,” said William Lewis, a local father.
He and his wife, Brittany Brown Lewis, have five children between the ages of four and 18. They have been a part of the group for two years and frequently tell their family and friends about the program.
“This is our second session, and we just love it so much. We love the community that it creates for us,” Brown Lewis said.
She added that they have learned to communicate differently with their children, and the whole family has grown closer.
“Parenting While Black caters to both the parent and the child. So that if I’m learning coping skills and meditation, my children are learning the same,” Brown Lewis said. “We’re really learning how to have the deep conversations. And I’m learning how to be quiet, because sometimes as a parent you often want your children to be quiet. Now I’m telling my children ‘I want you to talk to me.’”
Her grandmother recently enrolled, too. She says that has deepened their relationship.
“So we’re having conversations that spans generations… Totally different experiences from her generation growing up with Jim Crow and then me growing up in the nineties and my children growing up in the 21st century,” she said. “You would think that after 70 plus years that the world has grown. In some aspects, it hasn’t and in some aspects, it has.”
Tamesha Bottoms is a mother of three boys and says the program has been transformational. It has been a healing experience for her.
“Very peaceful for me, and it just helped me through a really rough time in my life,” Bottoms said. “It helped me be a better mom… I was always excited to learn something and learn more about myself too.”
A new session just kicked off last week, and the program is still enrolling. You can register here.
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