wfn.org | NCCCUSA Effective Black Parenting Training

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

National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA
Contact: NCC News, 212-870-2227
Email: news@ncccusa.org  Web: www.ncccusa.org

40NCC4/1/99 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

FIRST-EVER TRAINING FOR CHURCH LEADERS IN EFFECTIVE BLACK
PARENTING
First Consultants Complete Training, Will Train Others in
Effective Black Parenting

 ATLANTA, Ga., March 27, 1999 ---- How are churches helping
to strengthen Black families for the new millennium?  Here's one
way - a pioneering national program sponsored by the National
Council of Churches.

 March 24-27 in Atlanta, the first class of consultants
completed the first-ever national training for church leaders in
Effective Black Parenting.  The NCC training - "part one" of
which for this group was Feb. 24-27 in Atlanta -- draws on faith
resources and on the Black family's history and strengths.

 These consultants are committed to recruiting at least two
churches in their home communities across the nation to provide
at least two Effective Black Parenting seminars apiece during the
coming 12 months. A second group will be trained in May and June
in Nashville toward a total of 50 consultants in this first phase
of the program.

 Effective Black Parenting is a tried and true program
created by the Center for the Improvement of Child Caring (CICC).
"We are pioneering this faith-based adaptation, testing how it
can move into congregations and help people present it from a
Christian perspective," said Josselyn Bennett of the Evangelical
Lutheran Church in America, Chicago, Chair of the NCC Black
Family Ministry Staff Team.

 The local seminars will be evaluated between now and
December 2000, with an eye to recommending the model for wider
use by churches.

The NCC's Effective Black Parenting initiative is made
possible by a $134,760 grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. and is
being conducted by the Council's Office of Family Ministries and
Human Sexuality in cooperation with 10 of the NCC's 35 member
denominations, including historic African American churches and
other denominations with significant African American membership.
The grant also will enable two national Black Family Ministry
Conferences, one in 1999 in Atlanta (Theme: "Strengthening Black
Families for the New Millennium") and one in 2000.

 The trainer, the Rev. Dr. Bennie C. Thompson of Chicago, a
psychotherapeutic counselor and United Methodist pastor, is no
stranger to a faith-based perspective.  But this is the first
training that Dr. Thompson - an experienced trainer of Effective
Black Parenting instructors - has done exclusively with church
leaders, said the Rev. Karen Bernstine, Coordinator, NCC Black
Family Ministry Project.  "Usually he works with agencies and
with parents mandated to take the training.  Neither have church
leaders interfaced before with this kind of training."

Dr. Thompson developed the faith-based adaptation at the
NCC's request, and his Atlanta training was rich in scriptural
principles for child-rearing and for nurturing spiritual
development in children.  He draws on those principles as he
works through the Effective Black Parenting training, which
includes modules on how to praise, confront and ignore
effectively; modern self-discipline; setting family rules; pride
in Blackness; preventing drug abuse, using chit-chat and special
incentives.

He also led the consultants in considering ways to bring the
Effective Black Parenting training into churches.  "Have a role
play during worship, as part of your sermon, on, for example, how
you do a family discussion on drugs," he urged.  "Now, some
churches will resist that, and say, `You are bringing the streets
into the church.'  I say, `Sometimes the streets are already in
there.'"

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 served as a consultant for the
National Baptist Convention USA, Inc., during that first project,
is project coordinator for this second project. She is currently
serving as a chaplain in the Office of Pastoral Care at New York
Methodist Hospital in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Now credentialed to lead the NCC faith-based Effective Black
Parenting workshops are:  Josselyn Bennett, Evangelical Lutheran
Church in America, Chicago; Charles Brooks, United Church of
Christ, Garner, N.C.; Marsha Brown, United Methodist,
Hyattsville, Md.; Michelle Brown, Christian Church (Disciples of
Christ), Indianapolis; Carmichael Cruthfield, Christian Methodist
Episcopal, Jackson, Tenn.; Tina Dabney, Evangelical Lutheran
Church in America, Chicago; Lois Douglas, United Methodist,
Harvey, Ill.; Cedric Gibb, Evangelical Lutheran Church in
America, Orangeburg, S.C.; Cheryl Jones, Presbyterian Church
(U.S.A.), Memphis; Marilyn Magee, United Methodist, Nashville.

Also, Douglas Maven, African Methodist Episcopal Zion,
Paterson, N.J.; Willa Ross, Christian Methodist Episcopal,
Jackson, Tenn.; Nora Lee Shumake, Christian Church (Disciples of
Christ), Detroit; Michael Starks, National Baptist Convention,
U.S.A., Inc.; Carson, Calif.; Francine Thomas, Christian Church
(Disciples of Christ), Detroit; Chester Tollette, Christian
Methodist Episcopal, Dayton, Ohio; Brenda Tribett, American
Baptist Churches in the U.S.A., Valley Forge, Pa.; Mylion Waite,
American Baptist Churches in the U.S.A., University Heights,
Ohio; Barbara Waller, American Baptist Churches in the U.S.A.,
Gurnee, Ill.; Minnie White, United Church of Christ, Whitakers,
N.C.

Participating Denominations: Black Family Ministry Project:
African Methodist Episcopal; African Methodist Episcopal Zion:
American Baptist Churches in the U.S.A.; Christian Church
(Disciples of Christ); Christian Methodist Episcopal; Evangelical
Lutheran Church in America; National Baptist Convention, U.S.A.,
Inc.; Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.); United Church of Christ;
United Methodist.

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