In January of this year, Forestdale was awarded a New York City Racial Equity Learning Lab grant. The Lab is an 8-month learning-to-action process grant to help us advance our commitment to racial equity. This award presents Forestdale with a challenge that we are prepared to meet head-on—holding frank discussions about race and its influence over a wide scope of our operational and programmatic aspects such as hiring, interpersonal relationships, supervision, Board composition, and partnerships with potential funders.

This is an excellent time in both Forestdale and America’s history to participate in such critical work, and we look forward to having the necessary discussions, learning about and practicing racial equity tools, and ultimately developing our capacity to implement racial equity policies and protocols. We thank the New York Community Trust for believing in us and our vision of a more just future for all, and we look forward to working with the Racial Equity Lab presenters, Race Forward.

Forestdale, a New York City (NYC) based non-profit child welfare agency helps families in crisis stabilize, work with children to place them on a path to future success and work with mothers and fathers to help them be great parents and plant the seeds for intergenerational advancement. Forestdale seeks to bring about positive, inter-generational changes in the lives of those we serve, including African Americans and immigrants from all nations. We are proud to celebrate Black History Month 2019, and its theme: Black Migrations (https://asalh.org/asalhs-2019-theme-black-migrations/).

For hundreds of years, the migration patterns of African Americans within the U.S., and emigration out the U.S. have been caused – or forced – by laws that supported slavery, Jim Crow, unequal & unfair hiring practices and other racially biased social constructs. The Great Migration – the relocation of more than 6 million African Americans from 1916-1970 (History.com editors, 2010) between rural and urban areas, South to North, and including past and present emigration from the Caribbean to the U.S. and of noted African Americans moving to Africa and Europe after the end of World War I and II.