Session: To be Young & Black: Using Intervention to Examine How Black Parents and Youth Make Meaning of Racialized Experiences (Society for Social Work and Research 22nd Annual Conference - Achieving Equal Opportunity, Equity, and Justice)

Black adolescents are negatively impacted by structural racism (e.g. low-resourced schools and harsher legal sentences) and interpersonal racism (e.g. racial discrimination from peers, teachers, and officers). In order to support their wellbeing amid racial marginalization, the papers included in this symposium use a developmental approach to examine the racial experiences of Black youth from the perspectives of parents, adolescents, and emerging adults. Each paper describes findings from interventions designed for Black youth and their parents. Paper one describes a family-based intervention aimed to foster discussions between Black parents and their early adolescent children. The presentation focuses on identifying parents' concerns about racial barriers for their child and describing the actions parents take to facilitate their children's understanding of race. Paper two describes a school-based intervention that enrolled Black high school students in research projects to examine the representation of Blacks in television. This presentation uncovers how participants conceptualized their racial identity throughout the duration of the program. Paper three describes a Facebook-based intervention aimed to support the needs of young Black men throughout the transition into adulthood. This presentation addresses how first-year Black college men discuss the influence of race across multiple domains, along with considering the long-term implications these racialized experiences have on their health and well-being.These studies work in tandem to provide insight into conceptualizations of racialized experiences across context and developmental periods for Black youth. Further, the studies highlight the utility of interventions to provide spaces for individuals to discuss the racial factors that impact the wellbeing of Black youth while promoting Black youth's ability to thrive in the face of adverse circumstance and race-related stressors