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The City of Minneapolis Division of Race & Equity is hiring a part-time temporary Project Coordinator. This person will provide subject-matter expertise, event planning, meeting facilitation and policy analysis support for the City's transgender equity work. This person will also work closely with the City's Transgender Equity Council and the Transgender Issues Work Group, as well as expanding upon it while collaborating with elected officials, City staff, and community to achieve programmatic goals.
For more information and to apply
Program Manager Presents at Government Alliance on Race & Equity Annual Membership Meeting
ReCAST Minneapolis presented at the 2019 GARE membership meeting on Youth Participatory Action Research. The presentation was meant to share information across jurisdictions on how to both train, engage, and uplift youth in their jurisdictions using YPAR. YPAR is a tool to empower those who are working within their communities as change agents using research through a racial equity and anti-racist lens.
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Remembering, Recovering, Reimagining
This year marks the 400 Year Commemoration of Africans being brought to Jamestown, VA by the British and forced into slavery. While Africans had been enslaved in the Americas prior to this date, this commemoration gives us an opportunity to reflect on the lasting impact of this event, as well as to honor the legacy of resistance and liberation of African American people.
To do this, the City of Minneapolis’ Division of Race and Equity is coordinating an effort to bring City Staff and community together to remember the histories of African American people, recover the stories of our oppression, resistance, and liberation, and reimagine a future that is not predicated on the harm of African American people. Internally, we will be hosting sacred conversations for City staff to discuss how they relate to the enslavement, resistance, and continual push for liberation for African American people. In addition, we will be hosting a summer lecture series featuring speakers who will help staff and residents better contextualize how the institution of slavery has impacted Minnesota, as well as the ongoing policies, programs, and practices that lead to the current disparities. We will announce more information as other details are confirmed.
For more information, email ebony.adedayo@minneapolismn.gov.
Oral History Update
ReCAST just finished wrapping up the first phase of the Northside Oral History Project! A huge shout out goes to 4000 More Creative and their team for capturing nearly 50 stories from elders in the community. We also extend appreciation and gratitude to our partners who made this success possible: Oak Park - Pillsbury United Communities, Masjid An Nur, Liberty Community Church, and Northside Residents Redevelopment Council.
We will be announcing information about the next phase of the project in the near future. In the meantime, get a glimpse of some of the stories by visiting the History Harvest exhibit at the Minnesota African American Heritage Museum and Gallery where two of the stories we captured are featured.
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The ReCAST Team submitted the annual report of the second year of the program to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services (SAMHSA) recently. The report has been printed and is ready for distribution in community. If you would like to receive a copy of this annual report, please email ReCASTMinneapolisInfo@minneapolismn.gov to request a copy.
Last week, over 40 City staff and external subject matter experts completed two full days of work on both the Housing and Economic Development policy priorities for the Strategic and Racial Equity Action Plan. The work sessions were facilitated by external consultants using the Metrics of Urgency/Vital Few process, which is a problem solving approach designed to identify vital projects that will improve outcomes for residents in each of the three policy areas of the Strategic and Racial Equity Action Plan. Building off the important work that happened in these sessions, City staff will be refining and developing the following components for the final plan to be adopted in July 2019:
- Strategic need with rationale
- Key lagging indicators
- Problem statement
- 3-year SMART goals
- “Metric of Urgency” – highest impact lagging indicators
- “Vital Few” projects - 1-3 projects that will impact goals
- Workplan (City staff actions at high-level)
About the Strategic and Racial Equity Action Plan
The goal of the Strategic & Racial Equity Action Plan is to prioritize and guide City work to eliminate racial disparities in three targeted policy areas. The strategic need for each policy area is outlined below:
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Housing: Reduce involuntary displacement in rental housing for Black, Indigenous, People of Color, and Immigrant communities that are disproportionately impacted.
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Economic Development: Increase the entry and sustainability of businesses in Minneapolis owned by people of color so that the disparity between Black, Indigenous, People of Color, and Immigrant communities and white people is eliminated.
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Public Safety: Eliminate the disproportionate impact of violence in Black, Indigenous, People of Color communities.
You can find more information on the Strategic and Racial Equity Action Plan on the City’s website. Additionally, if you’d like to provide input on any of the three policy areas of the plan, you can submit comments using the Strategic & Racial Equity Action Plan Community Survey.
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Violence Prevention Fund Review Opportunity
The Minneapolis Health Department (MHD) is looking for people with expertise and interest to help review proposals and make funding recommendations for our Violence Prevention Fund (VPF) funding opportunities. There are two different funding opportunities to review for: the downtown VPF (for violence prevention projects located primarily in downtown) and the citywide VPF (for violence prevention projects located in any part of the City except downtown).
What are we asking for?
Reviewers would be asked to read and score approximately 4-8 proposals on their own time before an in-person meeting. Then, reviewers would be asked to attend an in-person meeting led by MHD to discuss any feedback, share their scores, and make funding recommendations. We expect the in-person review meetings will last approximately 3-4 hours. We are asking that reviewers only review for a funding opportunity that they haven’t applied for themselves.
How do I sign up to help?
If you’re willing and able to help, please reply to Lynn Bretl (lynnbretl@me.com) with the following information:
- Which funding opportunity do you want to review for (downtown, citywide, either one, or both)?
- Confirm that you have not applied for the funding opportunity you want to review for.
- Which in-person review sessions could you attend (please list all that would work)?
- What sector do you represent—government, community-based provider, resident, other (if other please specify)—and what, briefly, is your role?
- Your preferred email address for receiving your reviewer packet
- Your preferred method of contact for any other communication (email and/or phone, phone number if applicable)
5th Annual African Mental Health Summit
Seeing the past but not captured by it: The Need for Cultural Healing
This Summit will feature important presentations that would change the perpetuated narratives around race and mental health to transform how the recognition, acknowledgement and appreciation of cultural differences influence mental health care provision among People of African Descent. Recognizing local knowledge and utilizing community-based assets make it possible to provide culturally-sensitive and appropriate mental health services that meets the demands of those who need cultural healing.
More information and registration
About ReCAST Minneapolis
The Resilience in Communities After Stress & Trauma (ReCAST) Minneapolis Program is funded through a multi-year grant from the Department of Health and Human Services' Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). ReCAST Minneapolis is intended to assist high-risk youth and families, and promote resilience and equity in communities that have recently faced civil unrest through the implementation of evidence-based violence prevention and community youth engagement programs, as well as linkages to trauma-informed behavioral health services. SAMHSA created the ReCAST Program to support communities that have lived through demonstrations of mass protest in response to police-involved shootings of unarmed African-American males.
For more information, please email ReCASTMinneapolisInfo@minneapolismn.gov.
This update was developed [in part] under grant number 1H79SM063520-01 from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The views, policies, and opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of SAMHSA or HHS.
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