Institute for Black Justice

The CHIMES Family Advocacy Program CHIMES is now three years old. Since its inception CHIMES has provided child welfare advocacy services to families with explicit priority given to families of Black African descent. CHIMES is designed to provide early intervention for families facing risk factors correlated with child welfare system involvement and to remove barriers to family well-being that fall within the parents control. The CHIMES case management framework includes child welfare prevention reunification and retention services that build on the family's natural supports cultural strengths and personal goals. A special subset of the CHIMES program is the BABAS Fathers Support Group BABAS for Black African descent and multi-racial fathers with children in dependency. BABAS is the Swahili word for fathers. This culturally-responsive online support group for men meets twice per week as a group with a parent coach facilitator. The BABAS program facilitator holds a Master of Arts in Social Work and has professional experience as a DCYF social worker and a court-appointed parent coach and counselor. The facilitator also identifies as an African-American male with lived experience in the child welfare system. IBJ's experience with families in the CHIMES and BABAS programs has led us to establish CHIMES-Prevention CHIMES-P as a separate program from our reunification and retention services. When IBJ works with families before they become involved with Child Protective Services CPS or before a dependency is filed we can proactively address the factors that are at the root of family separation based on neglect: poverty and untreated trauma. In 2023 IBJ introduced a comprehensive Five Point Plan to Thrive to the curriculum of the CHIMES-P program. The Plan to Thrive is a goal setting tool that invites parents to plan their future in five areas of life. We also added budgeting and financial literacy to our CHIMES-P program content. Parents from all walks of life took immediate advantage of individualized coaching financial counseling and career counseling offered through partnerships with TAPCO Credit Union Sound Outreach and ACCEL 180. IBJ has built an impressive and growing list of partnering providers who house educate advocate and strengthen our families with therapeutic services. These include but are not limited to housing providers inpatient and outpatient treatment centers home visit nurses civil legal aid providers drug and alcohol counselors harm reduction doulas and attorneys. In 2023 IBJ officially launched CHIMES NW a community-based network of volunteers who provide mentorship and support to women-led organizations and families. CHIMES NW practices the ministry of showing up for women and families and for the organizations that serve them. IBJ acts as a facilitator and consultant for CHIMES NW as it moves toward official incorporation with the Washington Secretary of State.

Activists Cultivating Equitable Strategies ACES is the IBJ's young adult leadership program open to young adults ages 18-35. Fashioned after the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee SNCC of the 1960's the ACES Program educates young adults interested in social justice advocacy and provides hands-on leadership training with like-minded change makers. ACES participants may take advantage of paid internships part-time contract work full-time employment opportunities entrepreneurship and volunteerism where appropriate. The ACES contribute to the IBJ's Annual Freedom Summer Symposium and Design Challenge FSS. In 2023 the FSS focused on economic justice and economic empowerment of Black communities. Attorney and nationally-known historian Hannibal Johnson served as the keynote speaker and delivered a provocative presentation on the Tulsa Oklahoma race massacre. Johnson spent two days in Tacoma where he spoke to approximately 100 people at the University of Puget Sound's Wheelock Student Center.

The Black Robe Podcast The Institute for Black Justice produced more than 75 segments of the Black Robe podcast an intergenerational dialog where the hosts interview guests discuss public policy decisions offer insights on changes in the law and promote events impacting communities of color.