wfn.org | NCC Black Family Parenting Project Gets Grant

[CAROL_FOUKE.parti@ecunet.org (CAROL FOUKE)]

National Council of the Churches of Christ in the 
U.S.A.
Contact: NCC News, 212-870-2227
Internet:  news@ncccusa.org

68NCC7/17/98             FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NCC BLACK FAMILY MINISTRY PROJECT ON PARENTING 
RECEIVES LILLY GRANT

NEW YORK, July 17 ---- Lilly Endowment Inc. has 
announced a grant of $134,760 that will enable the 
National Council of Churches (NCC) Black Family 
Ministry Project to go ahead with an initiative on 
Effective Black Parenting, beginning this fall.  

The project is an effort of the NCC's office of 
Family Ministries and Human Sexuality in cooperation 
with ten denominations, including historic African 
American churches and other denominations with 
significant African American membership.

Plans call for the recruitment of 50 African 
American congregations that will make a commitment 
to conduct Effective Black Parenting programs using 
resources developed through the project.  
Recruitment of the 50 congregations will begin this 
fall.  The congregations also will serve as sites 
for research and evaluation of the project's 
effectiveness.  "In essence, they will be labs to 
help find out what works and what doesn't," says the 
Rev. Dr. Joe Leonard, NCC director of family 
ministries.

The grant will also enable two national Black 
Family Ministry Conferences, one in 1999 and one in 
2000.

The focus on parenting grew out of work from 
1991-95, funded in part by an Endowment grant, that 
aimed at strengthening Black families in many areas 
of life.  During those years, 100 consultants were 
trained to help congregations be more aware of the 
needs of Black families and to be more intentional 
in ministering to them.  The project also published 
a manual, Church and Family Together, edited by 
Karen Bernstine (Valley Forge, Judson Press 1996).

Experience led the project team to believe that 
there is a critical need to address faith formation 
in African American households, to provide places 
for parent education in Black congregations and to 
develop new resources to undergird programs of Black 
family ministry.

The Rev. Bernstine, who was trained and served 
as a consultant for the National Baptist Convention 
USA, Inc., in the first phase of the project, has 
been contracted to serve as project coordinator for 
this second phase.  She is currently serving as a 
chaplain in the Office of Pastoral  Care at New York 
Methodist Hospital in Brooklyn, NY.
-end-
 -0-