Black Child Development Institute, San Francisco (BCDI-San Francisco) was launched in June 2025 as a new organization to mobilize communities to support the health, safety, and wellbeing of Black children and families. Our local Village is one of the newest Villages to launch with the National Black Child Development Institute (NBCDI). NCBDI was founded in 1970 and is the only national organization focused solely on the unique attributes and needs of Black children, birth through age 8. Within this vibrant space, we’ve been able to develop a deep sense of community, celebrate their cultural identity and joy, and advocate for Black children and their health and wellbeing. 

How do we do this? We honor Black individuals’ heritage and their lived experiences. We amplify the strengths and talents of Black children and mobilize stakeholders in local communities to address their needs. 

BCDI-San Francisco’s overall project goal is to support the health, safety, and well-being of Black children so they can develop and thrive in school and in life. 

Our priorities include:

• Equipping residents with the tools and knowledge to achieve food sovereignty
• Pushing to maintain SNAP and WIC investments as solutions for growing food insecurity rates amongst Black children and families
• Improving the quality of life through access to clean water and air so Black children and families can thrive
• Advancing health equity for Black children and families through free food distribution, nature play activities, physical movement activities, healing and meditation circles, outdoor gardening and other immersive wellness initiatives 

Black children are celebrated and centered in our programming because they are beautiful, magical, creative, powerful, resilient, and have cultural assets that will positively impact the world. We believe that what we’re creating in our BCDI Village is innovative, transformative and will serve as the impetus to improved life outcomes for our children and families. The deep relationships we have in communities are our greatest assets and we believe that cultivating grassroots leadership will in turn, create sustained impact. We’re cultivating leaders through trainings, leadership institutes and healing retreats to strengthen the capacity of local stakeholders to change policy and practice.

Spreading Black joy 

As a founding Village leader, I am honored to be the architect behind this organization and ensure that joy, affirmation and wellness is threaded in all our powerbuilding work. My role is creating the organizational structure, policy blueprint, partnerships and visibility opportunities to effectively engage and convene community to support Black children. I’m especially proud to create liberating and healing spaces for families and community stakeholders where we can focus on our holistic health. 

In the month of February, we participated in a number of policy hearings, public forums and community engagement events to spread Black joy, uplift Black children and showcase the power and cultural pride we have in our community. Our proudest moment to date has been introducing our organization to the San Francisco Bay Area with a health and nutrition-focused activation at the Black Joy Parade in Oakland, California. 

We had a vendor booth powered by 16 volunteers with the goal of exciting community members to live healthy lives, eat nutritious meals and join our movement to advance health equity for Black children and families. We informed individuals about food pantries, free community resources to meet their basic necessities, community health clinics and how to enroll in Medi-Cal insurance coverage. We shared upcoming powerbuilding and leadership development trainings, cultural recipes, free nutrition-focused children’s books and classroom materials. Finally, we engaged community members in an interactive, visual survey where they mapped their health, safety and education priorities to support Black children’s development to inform our powerbuilding work. 

We were thrilled to join the Black Joy Parade, which was a day of joy, celebration and empowerment. This year, the Black Joy Parade had over 120,000 attendees and 209 small business vendors. It continues to get increasingly popular and the event gave BCDI-San Francisco the opportunity to extend our reach. 

Additionally, in February, we were a featured presenter at the Shape Up Coalition’s meeting. This is part of our work to align with coalitions and collaborate with organizations with similar priorities when meeting with local key decision and policymakers. For this particular meeting, staffers working with a member of the San Francisco County Board of Supervisors were present. We hosted a budget advocacy and storytelling workshop for our BCDI founding Village leaders and attended the San Francisco Department of Health budget hearing. Additionally, a few of our Village leaders made public comment at a commission hearing where the budget priorities for the San Francisco Department of Early Childhood were being presented. BCDI-San Francisco was also represented at the second annual People's Budget Summit where we met with cross-sector stakeholders working in education, climate, nutrition, immigration and other issue areas.

Partnership with CSPI

We are partnering with the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) as participants in their Powerbuilding Cohort to support our capacity-building efforts. We’ve established BCDI-San Francisco as a new entity with a growing community footprint, grassroots leadership model and a robust, broad-ranging approach to health and early childhood education systems change. BCDI-San Francisco is fully committed to powerbuilding as a first-year start-up organization, leading food justice, nutrition and health equity initiatives to improve the life outcomes of Black children and families. This is directly aligned with the food security, nutrition access, and food system improvement initiatives that CSPI leads. With the support of CSPI, we’re meeting our goal in expanding our capacity and community footprint in San Francisco County and Alameda County. 

Through the Powerbuilding Cohort, we are fortunate to have access to food security, nutrition and policy experts around the country and support with developing and driving policy initiatives. CSPI has already connected us to research, funding opportunities and helped us identify national policy initiatives where there’s alignment with local priorities. During CSPI’s trainings, organizations in the Bay Area have presented case studies on their local food justice and health equity campaigns to the Powerbuilding Cohort. This has given us a new lens on how we approach our work with youth at the core, shaping and leading policy initiatives. 

Our ‘why’

Our communities have showcased resilience and joy in the best of times and in challenging times. In San Francisco, gentrification, economic inequities, and redlining have plagued our communities and led to the decreased numbers of Black residents in the city over the last few decades. In the pandemic, the leadership of the Children’s Council of San Francisco, our fiscal sponsor, and Black early childhood stakeholders set a goal to create a local Village of the National Black Child Development Institute. After a few years of organizing behind the scenes, we successfully launched BCDI-San Francisco. 

As a local Village of NBCDI, we’ve been informing and engaging community around their report “Afrofuturism and Systems Change.” Additionally, we are activating communities around NBCDI’s Eight Essential Outcomes for Black child development which includes safe communities, healthy births, food security, nutrition, digital safety, environmental justice and cultural affirmation that leads to joyful Black children that are supported. 

Some of our organizational successes include:

• Creating learning communities so parents and providers can get federal policy updates affecting SNAP benefits and receive health and safety tips to support children in school
• Hosting guided meditation circles resulting in individuals learning breathing and relaxation techniques and receiving support on their wellness journey to combat mental health disparities in the Black community
• Providing advocacy training to parents, providers and stakeholders so they can advocate for the needs of Black children and their families
• Educating individuals around the role urban farms play in strengthening local food systems and providing educators and families with supplies to build their own take-home herb gardens
• Distributing fresh produce and diapers and getting participants engaged in physical exercise to combat high incidences of health disparities in the Black community.

How to get involved

We encourage all individuals who have a vested interest in supporting Black children to get involved with NBCDI and to find a local Village near you. You can access research and valuable information on systems change efforts. For those who want to learn more information about BCDI-San Francisco, email bcdi@childrenscouncil.org to gain access to local events and community programming.