10.23.20 | Talking to Children About Race & Racism

HRI is glad to partner again with the Guilford County Partnership for Children and UNC Greensboro’s Drs. Stephanie Coard and Laura Gonzalez to provide parents with a resource to assist them in having courageous conversations with their children about race and racism.

The free webinar will feature an overview of the One Talk at a Time program for families and will feature strategies for Latinx American, Asian American, African American, and Black youth and their families to have conversations about race and ethnicity. We will also address strategies for White families to talk together about racism and ways to notice and push back on white skin privilege.

About One Talk at a Time:

We live in a diverse and racially conscious world. All parents play a crucial role in helping their children navigate such a world, including Black, Asian, Latinx, and White parents. Parent-child conversations about race related issues are needed to help children construct a strong foundation and to thrive. The way in which parents of color teach their children what it means to be a person of color and how to navigate racially salient interactions (e.g., racism, discrimination) is referred to as racial-ethnic socialization (RES). The way in which white parents teach their children about unearned racial privilege and how to push back on it is called anti-racism. Parents need resources and tools to help improve their self-efficacy to have conversations about race/racism/RES, and promote the social, emotional, and cultural development of their children. An overview of the conception of One Talk at a Time program followed by description of the Ready Set Talk approach will be presented. Demonstration of video excerpts will be used for illustration purposes.

About the speakers:

Dr. Stephanie Irby Coard is a clinically trained psychologist, researcher and tenured Associate Professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies at UNC Greensboro.  Dr. Coard’s research examines racial, ethnic and cultural influences on youth development and family functioning and the development and implementation of culturally relevant evidence-based practices targeting African American families and communities. Her clinical training and understanding of socio-cultural factors as they relate to the etiology, treatment and prevention of child mental health problems has informed her work on a number of locally and federally funded studies to pursue research in the development of culturally-relevant strategies to assist African American parents to prevent and manage common behavior problems among youth. This research has resulted in the development of an observational measure of racial socialization and a parenting curriculum and written materials.
Dr. Laura M. Gonzalez is an Associate Professor in the Higher Education program at UNC Greensboro. Her research focuses on college access for students from Latinx immigrant families, which has included community-based outreach for Spanish-speaking parents. She utilizes a social learning approach to interventions, including the One Talk at a Time project and an undocu-friendly college planning website called So Much Potential. In all of her work, she seeks to decrease or eliminate barriers and enhance or co-construct supports to human development, wellbeing, and self-actualization.

Click here to watch the recorded program.