For many years mentoring and other youth serving professionals believed that it was too time consuming and too difficult to engage parents – especially caregivers of color--and that it was much more effective to just focus on the children being served. We now know this was an over sight, and that it is essential to collaborate with parents as decisions are made regarding the growth and development of their children. This workshop will provide strategies that will help mentoring and youth serving programs to move from implicit bias, “white-saviorism,” or just plain confusion about what to do, to a respectful collaboration with caregivers of color. Program staff will leave this training with a better understanding of how to assist BIPOC families and communities to engage in programs and other systems so that their children will be better served. Although this training was developed primarily for program staff and administrators, is can also be helpful for mentors and other youth serving volunteers.

For questions, interpretation services, or requests for disability-related accommodations, free of charge, call (909) 383-9677 (dial 7-1-1 for TTY users). Please request accommodations at least 72 hours prior to the event.

Services are provided in collaboration with the San Bernardino County Department of Behavioral Health and funded by the Mental Health Services Act (Proposition 63).

Para obtener esta información en español llame el (909) 383-9677.

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Jerry Sherk has been a trainer and consultant in the field of youth mentoring since 1995. Jerry was also a school counselor, and he developed and ran group mentoring programs in San Diego area schools. As a consultant for the Center for Applied Research Solutions and the National Mentoring Resource Center, Jerry has worked with hundreds of youth mentoring programs. Jerry is currently the Director of Training and Education for the California Mentoring Partnership. No stranger to the San Bernardino Mentoring Task Force, Jerry has provided a number of workshops to our organization over the past few years. Prior to his career in human services, Jerry was a defensive lineman for the NFL’s Cleveland Browns.