Welcome to the African American Babies Website!
Our Vision: African American families and communities will claim our cultural heritage so that our babies will thrive, excel and lead us into the future.
This website contains information developed by our community for our community. Our goal is to support African American parents, grandparents, childcare providers, faith communities and everyone who cares about our babies by supporting:
- Giving our community an understanding of what toxic stress looks like in day-to-day life.
- Sharing community voices that can translate research concepts into honest, real, on the ground language, ideas and parenting tools.
- Recognizing that the number one public health issue in African American community is toxic stress.
- Offering hope for the future – we do better when we know better.
| Supporting Babies’ Brain Development | Supporting Healthy Pregnancies | Supporting our Community | |||
Giving our community an understanding of what toxic stress looks like in day-to-day life, and sharing community voices that can translate research concepts into honest, real, on the ground language, ideas and parenting tools. |
Addressing disparities in the African American community when it comes to pregnancy and birth outcomes, including low birth weight, preterm birth, infant and maternal mortality. |
Engaging leaders, policymakers, professionals, and parents around critical and timely issues that directly impact black children and their families. |
The African American Babies Coalition (AABC) is a group of African American community stakeholders which include educators, nonprofit and civic leaders, researchers, childcare providers, parents and grandparents and public health professionals, from across the Twin Cities who are committed to promoting the healthy development of African American babies. As of July 2020, the African American Babies Coalition is a program of the Amherst H. Wilder Foundation.
The coalition was instrumental in completing three phases of work to develop a campaign focused on building healthy brains for children from conception through the early years of development targeted to the African American public.
“The goal of the Brains are Built campaign is to share what is known from brain science and early childhood development research in a culturally relevant and accessible way with parents, grandparents and young people”
– AABC Project Director, Sameerah Bilal-Roby.
African Americans often have negative responses to research because of historical occurrences and the disturbing actions and opinions prompted by it. AABC’s number one priority was to develop steps to engage families and assist them to trust the research process – and the information that exists about the brain development of our babies.
A major goal of the campaign also seeks to make sure African American families are aware of early traumatic experiences that can short circuit young brain development. The Brains are Built campaign highlights what it takes to change behaviors that are inappropriate to a young child’s evolving brain. The outcome is to support adults living with toxic stress to recognize risky behaviors that distress their child(s) growth and development in an informal and non-judgmental way.
Congratulations to the AABC and their win at the 2017 Uppermidwest Emmy’s! You can watch the Brains Are Built videos (with TPT) online here – https://www.youtube.com/watch…
