Centering Black Youth Wellbeing
This virtual community of practice explores ways to center the wellbeing of Black young people and... View more
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This space is for sharing reflections and resources
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As you reflect on your journey with the Centering Black Youth and Wellbeing Certificate, check out these 5 resources from our Knowledge Hub that explore healing justice, Ubuntu, and anti-racism practices to support Black and racialized youth:
📄 Healing Practices for Black & Racialized Youth – Evidence-based practices you can integrate into your programs https://youthrex.com/evidence-brief/healing-practices-for-black-racialized-youth/
📝 Radically Healing Black Lives: A Love Note to Justice – How young leaders are changing social movements through healing justice https://youthrex.com/research-summary/radically-healing-black-lives-a-love-note-to-justice/
✊ How You Can Be an Ally in Working Against Anti-Black Racism – Practical actions for being an effective ally https://youthrex.com/factsheet/how-you-can-be-an-ally-in-working-against-anti-black-racism/
🌍 The HARMONY Framework for Healing with Ubuntu – A culturally-grounded approach to community healing https://youthrex.com/factsheet/the-harmony-framework-for-healing-with-ubuntu/
🎥 Healing In Community: Practicing Ubuntu & HARMONY in Youth Work – Watch our powerful teach-in session https://youthrex.com/video/healing-in-community-practicing-ubuntu-and-harmony-in-youth-work/
“A person is a person through other people” – Ubuntu
Whether you’re continuing your learning or just getting started, these resources offer powerful frameworks integrating racial healing.
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Dr Ann Arnett Ferguson’s framework reveals a sophisticated form of cultural extraction. Black masculinity becomes simultaneously criminalized and commodified.
Black males’ images and futures are inevitably sealed & prepackaged in this western world as the criminal image or the endangered species image.
The social engineering Ferguson identifies operates exclusively on Black men: systemic conditioning that narrows their behavioral possibilities while expanding societal surveillance. Yet this same engineering process creates cultural signifiers—confidence, authenticity, physical presence—that become valuable social currency when performed by non-Black bodies. Wearing durags, cornrows, the jamaican-canadian accent we all mock.
This is strategic extraction. The very traits that trigger punitive responses when embodied by Black men become markers of desirability, coolness, or authenticity when adopted by others. The criminalization creates scarcity; the scarcity creates value; the value gets harvested by those immune to the criminalization.
What emerges is a system where Black men experience the disciplinary mechanisms of social control while simultaneously watching their cultural expressions become profitable performances for others. They live the consequences of the stereotype while others access its social benefits.
The sophistication lies in the circularity: society constructs limiting images of Black masculinity, criminalizes Black men for embodying these constructions, then celebrates non-Black appropriation of the same traits as transgressive or authentic. Black men remain trapped within the disciplinary framework while their cultural production circulates freely in privileged hands.
Social engineering is far too sinister too interesting to talk about. It is really deeply insidious how racism is thought out and performed. Dehumanization sounds like exactly what it sounds, however I digress.
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Canada loves its diversity show. Since 1988, we’ve been the country that gets it—multicultural, welcoming, progressive. We put it on our money, in our tourism ads, on our international reputation.
Caribana gets defunded. Blockorama fights for survival. Black youth organizations get their budgets slashed while City Hall poses for photos at their events.
But as Dr. Andrea Davis reminds us is Module 2 (2.2: Challenging Constructions of Black Youth Masculinities) that this celebration can be a shield.
It lets us enjoy the flavours of Africa, the Caribbean, South Asia without facing how anti-Black racism—and colonialism—still shape our lives.
I once had a white coworker smile and say,
“Was colonialism fun? I mean, we get to have jollof rice and curry goat all in one place!”Because displacement and unspeakable violence is a joke.
Hyper-performative multiculturalism is Canada’s specialty: we’ve mastered celebrating culture while starving the communities that create it. We’ll fund the festival but not the youth center. We’ll Instagram the parade but ignore the program cuts. We’ll applaud Black excellence while Black kids still face suspension rates three times higher than their white classmates. The ignorance and evasiveness is pungent- look at Little Jamaica.
It’s brilliant, really. Everyone gets to feel good. The politicians get their photo ops. The public gets their cultural tourism. And when the music stops, when the cameras leave, the real work—the funding, the policy changes, the daily grind of supporting Black communities—that’s someone else’s problem.
This isn’t accidental. Comfort and complicity are best friends. They almost sharpen another. It’s easier to celebrate Blackness as performance than to confront it as lived experience. It’s easier to cheer diversity than to NAME the systems that make it necessary to fight for basic equity.
The danger is that we think caring is enough.
Real solidarity doesn’t come with a parade permit. It shows up with sustainable funding, policy changes, and the uncomfortable conversations Canada loves to avoid. It means moving from audience to accomplice.
As Dr. Andrea Davis Davies reminds us of the Canadian Multiculturalism Act of 1988 in the CBYW lectures- it promised inclusion, but what is performance when the system underneath is decaying, rotting, eating communities alive? What good are multicultural celebrations when the very structures meant to protect and nurture are exploitative and rotten at their core? So in our face, super that.
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This reply was modified 21 hours, 28 minutes ago by REX Virtual Cafe.
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This reply was modified 21 hours, 28 minutes ago by
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In Module 1, Nene Kwasi Kefele situates us in the historical and contextual realities of Black/African Canadians, including the story of Mathieu da Costa (1604)—an interpreter between the Mi’kmaq and the French, and one of the earliest recorded Black presences in what is now Canada. If this history exists, and is foundational—why isn’t it commonly taught, named, or visible in our public memory? What does it mean for our identities, our institutions, and our practices when stories like these are omitted or only partially told?
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Thank you for the opportunity to explore and learn about ABR and youth wellbeing.
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Hi Julie! Thank you for all your amazing work with TFEL, for this partnership with Youth Rex, and for opening up the opportunity for me to take this course. I learned about the certificate as a practicum student with Habitus, and it has contributed many transformational insights to my social work practice.
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Hello! The TFEL project is pleased to partner with YouthRex for this partnered training Centering Black Youth Wellbeing: A Certificate on Combating Anti-Black Racism! from May 8 to July 16, 2023. Registrations are open until July 15th (in case you wish to share in your networks).
My name is Julie Drolet and I look forward to connecting with you in the virtual cafe during our course.
To learn more about the Transforming the Field Education Landscape (TFEL) partnership please visit our website: https://tfelproject.com
Thanks,
Julie Drolet
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Yesterday I had the privilege of attending a Youth Rex presentation <strong style=”font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit;”>Hacking Deficit Thinking
<strong style=”font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit;”>Reframing Strength-Based <strong style=”font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit;”>Practices and Equity in Schools
A Youth Work Teach-In Hacking Deficit Thinking
Reframing Strength-Based
Practices and Equity in Schools and it was AMAZING!! It might have been in part that I had just had a long conversation with colleagues about the tone and mood in schools right now but it hit the mark for reframing the issues and put a fresh, positive and realistic take to approaching and supporting our students.One of the quotes that resonated with me from one of the presenter’s Dr. Bryon McClure was how the assumptions we hold create barriers for understanding our students. I can’t quite quote it directly and would sincerely encourage others to look for the opportunity to hear him speak.
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Thank you for sharing this.
There are so many great resources with this training. This is one of the things I am thankful for with this training, is the learning that can continue even with the time ending.
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As an elementary library educator, the predominant way into these discussions is through the use of contemporary children’s literature. Step one has been acquiring a broad range of materials that is reflective of myriad cultures, ethnicities, communities, genders, etc. written and illustrated by individuals from these communities. Sourcing and budgeting for this is no small matter.
Promoting and encouraging the use of these these materials to teaching staff is step two. Many staff are reluctant to branch out into topics they may find outside their own experience. They fear fielding questions from students that they don’t hold the answers to. Cultivating relationships with staff that support them and liaising with them as they read can help. One of the biggest concerns from staff is not wanting to put students from BIPOC communities ‘on the spot’ when topics come up and they are the only representative of that race or culture in the classroom.
One important way I’ve framed things for students and staff is using Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop’s quote about “windows, mirrors, and sliding glass doors” as entry points for all children into stories that help them understand themselves and the world around them.
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We’re so excited to share that registration opened today for our next online Youth Work Teach-In — Beyond Invisible: Exploring Pedagogy, Perspectives & Practices for Black Youth Mental Health.
In collaboration with Donna Richards and the York Research Chair in Youth and Contexts of Inequity, YouthREX is excited to co-host this free event for the Ontario youth sector on Thursday, October 6th, from 9:30AM to 1PM ET.
The Teach-In will include a keynote presentation, engaging workshops, and conversations that explore how race shapes the mental health experiences of Black youth, and the importance of an anti-Black racism framework in transforming oppressive practices and policies.
Our opening keynote speaker, Mercy Shibemba, is an award-winning youth activist from the UK who uses her story of growing up with HIV to educate, challenge stigma, and inspire!
There will also be a spoken word performance by The Poet MJ.
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Thank you for sharing this! This is a great way for people to connect.
Trauma-Informed Youth Work Workshop: https://learn.youthrex.com/courses/Workshop-trauma-informed-youth-work
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Thank you so so much for sharing all of this! I really appreciate it. I feel like I have so much still to learn and this is a continued area of growth for me.
I also really enjoyed the additional readings/fact sheets that were included throughout this course. There are so many good ones. I just wish we had more time to go through more of the content.
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Hi everyone,
I just wanted to share some information with the group. I thought if anyone knows of any relevant resources, trainings or workshops, perhaps we could share them here. 🙂
Support for Black youth: RiseUp powered by Kids Help PhoneSupport for Black youth:
Serving BIPOC populations in Early Psychosis Intervention (EPI) services:
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YouthREX’s Knowledge Hub page has a fact sheet that may be helpful. It gives advice on how to possibly broach the topic of the intersectional identities of black youth and their experiences.
https://youthrex.com/factsheet/ten-tips-for-putting-intersectionality-into-practice/
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A healing-centered approach to addressing trauma requires a different question that moves beyond “what happened to you” to “what’s right with you” and views those exposed to trauma as agents in the creation of their own well-being rather than victims of traumatic events. https://ginwright.medium.com/the-future-of-healing-shifting-from-trauma-informed-care-to-healing-centered-engagement-634f557ce69c and the work of Brother Angel Acosta have been helpful https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCE7MYoidOM
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What are some examples of words/activities you have used in your practice with black youth to broach the topic of their experience with racial, ethnic, and cultural dynamics related to their intersectional identities?
As a mental health professional, I have noticed that in my practice (individual counselling) that this topic is primarily youth driven; however, I want to create more intentional space for these conversations to happen. Would love to hear about how you broach these topics.
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