The African American Leadership Forum (AALF), the Cultural Wellness Center, and Relationships LLC Partner to Launch a Cultural Health & Wellness Directory
Working Together to Make Communities of Color Stronger
The African American Leadership Forum (AALF) is excited to announce the launch of a Cultural Health & Wellness Directory, which was developed by our 2020 Collective Impact Workstream cohort in partnership with the Cultural Wellness Center and Relationships LLC. AALF’s Collective Impact Initiative, comprised of a Task Force & Workstream cohort includes dynamic African American innovators from across the Twin Cities and Minnesota, who are chosen through a comprehensive application process to identify the Black community’s most pressing challenges and engage in projects that help solve them. The Cultural Health & Wellness Directory is a resource for recovering resilience and building the capacity of cultural practitioners to provide improved services to African American and IPOC communities.
About the Partnership
AALF, the Cultural Wellness Center, and Relationships LLC have come together to fully leverage our shared resources to empower Minnesotans to heal themselves and to build their communities. With a unified voice AALF and these partners, including Dr. Joseph Reid, are providing services to the City of Minneapolis (Division of Race & Equity) to design and implement a process that tracks the ReCAST program objectives as stated in the Trauma and Resilience Services & Capacity Building RFP.
This partnership aligns with AALF’s mission to establish a just and healthy society that works equally well for everyone and with empowering the African American community around the organization’s four focus areas: Economic Development, Education, Health & Wellness, and Family & Culture. As a data-driven nonprofit comprised of over 1,500 African American leaders from across Minnesota, AALF strives to provide the social, political and leadership capital necessary to close disparities in the Black community as it relates to the areas above.
AALF is excited to be working with the Cultural Wellness Center (founded in 1996), a premier community and cultural knowledge-production organization in the Twin Cities with a mission to engage in partnerships that develop models to solve problems and create lasting solutions. The Cultural Wellness Center works with individuals, communities, families, academic institutions, government agencies, philanthropists, and other non-profit organizations to build a body of knowledge and web of relationships that support community engagement, intercultural communication, and personal responsibility.
This partnership is also strengthened by collaboration with Dr. Reid, who is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, professor, speaker, supervisor, and consultant with extensive experience in private practice, training and supervising students and interns. As founder of Relationships, LLC, a therapy mental health training center, he leads the center in providing inclusive education, training and mental health services to individuals, couples, family, and community.
About the Community Project
AALF, Cultural Wellness Center, and Relationship LLC were identified by the City of Minneapolis’ Division of Race and Equity as valuable resources for designing and implementing a process that includes the:
(1) development and implementation of a web-based repository of providers, community cultural healers and licensed mental/behavioral health providers available to the community; (2) increasing the number of providers in the repository to receive training in trauma-informed approaches, violence prevention, mental health literacy, and other related training mental health or related workforce trained in behavioral/mental health trauma-informed approaches, (3) increasing the number of individuals (youth and family members) from the ReCAST Minneapolis geographical area of focus receiving services for trauma informed behavioral health, and (4) developing and implementing a process to provide funding to providers in the repository to increase the number of individuals (youth and family members) receiving services for trauma informed behavioral health.
By working together, AALF, the Cultural Wellness Center, and Relationship LLC are providing the Black community and IPOC communities throughout the state with an essential resource that supports health & wellness by connecting healers and practitioners with the individuals, families, and communities that need them the most.
To learn more about the African American Leadership Forum and our work to bring positive change to the Black community visit www.aalftc.org. The Cultural Health & Wellness Directory will be available on our website and an external site.