Black Child Development PDX

BCDpdx Mission:
To bring like-minded community members, Black Leaders, and Allies together to change the outcomes for young black children in Portland. We're the heart that brings black children to the center of focus in our community. We improve and advance the quality of life for black children in Oregon and their families through community, education, and advocacy. We build leaders for the black child.

Vision:
Envisions a Black community that ensures a successful future for all Black children.

Goal:
As an organization dedicated to the success and well-being of Black children, Black Child Development PDX strives to be a strong voice on issues related to the education, care, and health of Black children and their families.

Our family childcare educators follow the High Scope Curriculum, and Creative Curriculum for Family Childcare and both or Curriculum that support Black children in Early Learning Setting and are well established early childhood curriculum that has been proven to meet the educational needs of children from all economic and cultural backgrounds. Our family childcare educators maintain regular communication with parents and facilitate parent/educator conferences throughout the year

History:

Black Child Development - Portland (BCDpdx) began to take shape in 2014/15 when the current Chair and Co-Chair Leslee Barnes and Lydia Gray-Holifield convened to address inequities black children faced within the early childhood education system in Portland, Oregon. With the full backing of the Early Learning Multnomah Hub and United Way of the Columbia-Willamette, it was with great hope to create a local affiliation of The National Black Child Development Institute. Due to some restructuring and after much revisioning BCDpdx in its current form was birthed mid 2019.

Black Child Development - Portland now lives under the umbrella of Raise the Village Inc., a non-profit and operated by Hadiyah Miller, President. The BCDpdx Early Learning Committee chairperson leads the advocacy efforts of the Expulsion/Suspension Prevention Committee that consists of community partners within Multnomah County.

In 2018 BCDpdx took on the audacious task of tackling the inequitable rate at which Black children were being expelled and suspended from early learning programs. National data indicates that black children represent only 18% of preschool enrollment but represent 48% of preschool children who receive one or more out-of-school suspension. In comparison, White children represent 41% of preschool enrollment, but only 28% of children receive one or more out-of-school suspensions. Over the past three years, BCDpdx has worked to locate data on the suspension and expulsion rates in Oregon. It has been discovered that the only data being tracked for children in early learning programs is around children with disabilities. This is also reported as an incomplete data set.

BCDpdx has been keenly aware that the Preschool to Prison Pipeline epidemic needed immediate attention from Black professionals working with young children to educate, support, and mobilize toward state legislation to ban the practice of preschool suspension and expulsion.

This work has begun with intentional community partnerships with Multnomah County, Oregon State legislators and allies to increase the Black workforce of educators and the use of the African American Cultural lens, which is critical in limiting the impact of expulsion and suspension to young Black children.

In support of this effort and the professionals within the early education field, BCDpdx has set out to charter the development of high-quality professional development coaching and training focused on environments, curriculum, social and emotional understanding, strategies, trauma-informed care and practices, and mental health interventions to support children, families, and educators to eradicate the social, emotional, cognitive impact for everyone.