Community

Community Collaboration
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Collaboration in Action: Making an Impact Together

Consistent with our mission, the Center on Race and Social Problems funds, initiates, and collaborates to design, implement and evaluate applied research-to-practice interventions, nested in communities of color.  Unlike traditional research done on communities, CRSP faculty develop and conduct research and intervention projects in partnership with communities. Our partners include young people, parents, schools, congregations, youth serving organizations, and community development agencies.

Black Pittsburgh Satisfaction and Retention Survey

The Center on Race and Social Problems (CRSP) and Corporate Equity and Inclusion Roundtable (CEIR) are spearheading a critical research project aimed at advancing social justice and promoting economic growth in the City of Pittsburgh and the region by addressing the complex issue of our declining Black population. 

We are surveying Black Pittsburghers, past and present to give us a better understanding of our strengths, weaknesses, and other factors that are causing some of us to stay in the region, while others leave.

To learn more and complete the survey, click the link below.

(Photo Credit: Ishara Henry for Age-Friendly Greater Pittsburgh)
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Community Projects

Our current projects focus on a range of social issues that disproportionately impact communities of color. Some of the goals that our current projects seek to accomplish include the following:
 
  • Eliminate racial disparities in school discipline practices
  • Improve birth outcomes among African American mothers
  • Provide low-income young people access to higher education
  • Prepare African American parents to support their children’s academic success
  • Increase the availability of safe spaces for youth development
  • Teach young people how to engage new media tools to rewrite the narrative of their neighborhoods
  • Equip residents to promote equitable development and resident driven community revitalization, versus gentrification
  • Address the intensive emotional, behavioral, and academic disruptions tied to students’ trauma history
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Just Discipline Project

The Just Discipline Project is a research-to-practice initiative designed to advance achievement for all students by implementing and evaluating school-based relational climate and restorative practice programs. 

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Pitt-Assisted Communities & Schools (PACS)

The mission of PACS is to mobilize University of Pittsburgh resources in ways that enrich the lives of Homewood children and youth, while simultaneously advancing the university's commitment to transformative teaching, learning, and community impact. 

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Research for Equity & Power (REP)

The REP Project has been actively engaging youth and adult Homewood residents since July 2019 to explore resident’s definitions of civic engagement, agency, and activism, particularly around the issue of equitable development and resident-driven community revitalization.

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SPIN Project

The SPIN Project, a NIDA funded project, seeks to engage youth in identifying safe and risky spaces in their neighborhood, to understand the relationship between exposure to these spaces, stress and substance use and work to increases youth access to safe spaces while addressing spaces that are potentially risky. 

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DREAMs Project

DREAMs, a trauma-informed project, aims to enhance struggling students’ behavioral and academic outcomes by addressing the unique social and emotional needs related to trauma exposure. 

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Parenting While Black (PWB)

Parenting While Black (PWB) is an interactive program and curriculum that provides primary caregivers with tools to simultaneously support their children’s healthy development and their own wellness. /parenting-while-black-growing-and-healing-together/parenting-while-black-growing-and-healing-together

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The Race &… Commons series

The Race &… Commons series is a marquee convention platform that features regional change agents, interventions, and initiatives at the intersections of race and education, health, justice, and wealth.

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United Nations Permanent Forum on People of African Descent Declaration Process

This initiative is a collaboration between the United Nations Permanent Forum on People of African Descent (UNPFPAD), the Center on Civil Rights and Racial Justice (CCRRJ), the Center on Race and Social Problems (CRSP), and the David C. Frederick Honors College (FHC).

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Parenting Across Difference

A partnership between the Pitt Center on Race and Social Problems and the Boston College Lynch School Department of Counseling, Developmental & Educational Psychology

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