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Research Projects

​"Education is the most powerful weapon which   you can use to change the world." -Nelson Mandela
Black Parenting Strengths and Strategies (BPSS)

 

BPSS is an evidenced-based program that aims to promote cultural, social and behavioral health among African American families. The BPSS program has been developed to incorporate the most successful strategies used by parenting and child development specialists, while drawing on the strengths, unique parental strategies and processes inherent in African American families (e.g., racial socialization).
BPSS programs are: BPSS Assist to Resist, BPSS Child, BPSS Family and BPSS Parent.

What is BPSS?​

 

The Black Parenting Strengths and Strategies curriculum is a 12-session evidence-based intervention designed to address issues that are specific to Black Parents.  The intervention seeks to promote positive and relevant parenting practices for fostering cultural, social and behavioral, health and academic success in African American children.

  • What are the goals of BPSS?

    • STRENGTHEN parenting skills
      IMPROVE parental involvement

    • EMPOWER parents to advocate and access

    • GUIDE parents in preparing African American children for success.

  • So we can…

    • INCREASE positive behaviors in children

    • DEVELOP self-image and self-esteem

    • BUILD their confidence in school

    • PROMOTE positive racial discussions

    • ENHANCE problem-solving skills

Teen Parent Mentor Program (TPMP)
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The Teen Parent Mentor Program was a 6-week community-based intervention program designed to identify empowerment tools to assist teen mothers who face specific challenges related to educational attainment, social support and financial stability.  It was developed in 

collaboration with YWCA and designed to foster factors that might increase positive youth development in at-risk teen mothers.

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  • Findings of TPMP

    • Peer attachment had a significant positive association with self-esteem. ​

    • Teen mothers with more peer attachment and parental involvement reported less depressive symptoms.

  • Future of TPMP

    • Plans include a larger scale evaluation including a semi-structured interview or alternative qualitative mechanism will provide richer data to explicate how those specific interpersonal relationships impact positive youth development in teen moms.​

Giving Fathers Voice (GFV)

The Giving Fathers Voice Project is an intervention designed to develop culturally-informed parenting content modules and behavioral models designed for Black fathers/caregivers.  The intervention modules will represent an innovative, much needed resource for Black fathers. With additional external funding the ultimate goal is to determine the impact of the modules/models on parent and child outcomes via a randomized pilot in a sample of Black fathers and to make modules/models video-based. The goals of the curriculum are to 

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  • Foster involvement and engagement in their parental role

  • Address the unique challenges of Black fathers in promoting social, emotional and cultural competence in their school aged children

  • Facilitate fathers use of developmentally appropriate approaches to racial/ethnic socialization and behavioral model some approaches to the racial/ethnic socialization conversations (i.e., racial/ethnic pride and preparation for bias) conversations.

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Promoting Dialogues (PD)

Promoting Dialogues is a culturally- relevant intervention developed to (1) examine the type of racial socialization messages transmitted by parents in African American families, (2) examine strategies employed by parents to communicate racial socialization messages to their middle-school children, and (3) examine barriers to racial socialization conversations between parents and their children.

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The Promoting Dialogues curriculum consists of two 60-minute facilitated conversation intervention modules that will focus on either a) racial/ethnic pride messages only or b) racial/ethnic pride and preparation for bias messages. The Promoting Dialogues Intervention was designed with the following aims in mind:

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  • Describe the barriers to racial/ethnic socialization parent-child conversations in Black, Latinx, and Asian families through focus group and quantitative data

  • Describe current coping with racism strategies and preparation for bias messages that families employ with their middle school aged children 

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Assist to Resist Program
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This is a program that strives to prevent substance use in Black Youth.  A supplemental parent training guide devoted to bringing simple, engaging and culturally relevant substance use and abuse prevention materials to African American parents of elementary-school age children. Assist to Resist (in combination with BPSS Program) is designed to empower African American parents to assist them in empowering their children to discover, define and develop both a positive racial identity and the skills to remain free of alcohol and other drugs. For African American youth, growing up Black and proud is crucial to growing up alcohol- and other drug-free. The program stresses the importance of parental racial socialization to promote cultural awareness and the individual and collective harms of destructive behavior. Through racial socialization parents can help African American children realize that they are a very special part of a very special community, and learn information and skills they will need to grow into drug free adults.

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