Embracing Our Fears: A Racial Socialization Intervention Addressing Parental Concerns for Black Children

BACKGROUND: Black parents’ fears regarding child safety have been well-documented throughout the literature, and recently exacerbated given the highly publicized killing of Black children (Thomas & Blackmon, 2015). With Black boys and girls facing their unique intersection of sexualized racism (e.g., hypermasculinity; Cunningham, Swanson, & Hayes, 2013), parents often prepare them specifically for the experiences they may face in the racialized world around them (e.g., racial socialization; Thomas, Caldwell, & Hill., 2012; White-Johnson, Ford, & Sellers, 2010). Although racial socialization (RS) has been identified as a protective factor for familial well-being outcomes, the competency of RS transmission (e.g., delivery and reception) for adolescents and parents has not been researched. This is of particular importance given reciprocal processes between family systems, especially in adolescence (Umana-Taylor, Zeiders, & Updegraff, 2013). Thus, a burgeoning intervention (Engaging, Managing, and Bonding through Race; EMBRace) sought to increase RS competence by 1) facilitating the sharing and processing of Black parent and adolescent experiences of racial rejection and support to reduce racial stress and trauma (RST), 2) improve the quality of Black parent-adolescent relationships, and 3) increase confidence by practicing successful coping strategies for future racial encounters.

METHODS: Ten youth and their caregivers (N = 20) were enrolled in the pilot, and inclusion criteria required target youth to be between ages 10-14 and at least one of their caregivers to self-identify as “African American”. This pilot trial of the five-session intervention was not a randomized clinical trial, thus, all families participated in the same procedures, including pre/post-test assessment, exposure to five manualized curriculum sessions of EMBRace, and parent-child interaction homework assignments. Qualitative interview questions of interest from the pre-post tests include “What are your current concerns for your child and is race among them?”, “What do you say and do with your child regarding racial knowledge?” “What would you like to do differently with your child regarding racial knowledge in the future?”.

RESULTS: Although the EMBRace intervention is currently being implemented in its initial pilot, our presentation of the 5-week trial will describe the three primary goals outlined above utilizing a systemic coding procedure to identify changes during the intervention within families and general themes across families. Qualitative pre-post interviews will be coded using a grounded approach to explicate the ways in which families share and process racial events, navigate familial conversations around these topics, and assess competence and esteem in discussing racial matters.

IMPLICATIONS: Findings from the qualitative methods will be used to develop, implement, and improve upon this and other RS interventions for Black families toward the reduction of academic, psychological, and health disparities facing Black youth. Stress management components in particular can be disseminated to agencies and clinicians who work with primarily ethnic minority clients, especially to be used during times of heightened displays of racial rejection and fear.