Black Child Legacy

Black Child Legacy Campaign

The Black Child Legacy Campaign is the community-driven movement established by the Steering Committee on Reduction of African American Child Deaths, which is working to reduce deaths of African American children by 10% to 20% by 2020 in Sacramento County.  Learn more and find the Community Incubator Lead organizations in your neighborhood.  Watch video.

The Steering Committee is funded by the County of Sacramento, the City of Sacramento and First 5 Sacramento, and is managed by The Center.

Steering Committee on Reduction of African American Child Deaths

The Steering Committee on Reduction of African American Child Deaths is a community-driven body of dedicated individuals working together on an effort to reduce deaths among African American children by between 10 percent and 20 percent by 2020 in Sacramento County.

The Steering Committee is funded by the County of Sacramento and First 5 Sacramento, and is managed by Sierra Health Foundation Center for Health Program Management.  The Committee was established by a resolution of the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors in June 2013. Its ultimate charge is to provide coordination and oversight of efforts, create a strategic plan, monitor implementation, evaluate, and report on progress toward reducing the disproportional number of African American child deaths. The Steering Committee’s efforts focus on four issue area:

1. Homicide related to Child Abuse and Neglect (CAN Homicide)
2. Third Party Homicide
3. Deaths related to Perinatal Conditions
4. Infant Sleep Related Deaths

The Steering Committee works collaboratively to:

1. Serve in a public leadership role to engage and mobilize the community to make sustainable change to achieve a reduction in preventable African American child deaths
2. Organize an infrastructure for the coordination of county-wide efforts
3. Build mechanisms to facilitate on-going community outreach, education and involvement
4. Create a strategic plan
5. Develop and monitor an implementation plan
6. Develop and monitor a data collection and evaluation plan
7. In collaboration with the Child Abuse Prevention Council, provide annual progress reports to the Board of Supervisors
8. Advise participating entities on public education campaigns, direct service delivery and policy matters
9. Seek funding to sustain the effort

For meeting information and membership application, visit Sierra Health Foundation Center for Health Program Management.

Background: In 2011, Supervisor Phil Serna convened the Blue Ribbon Commission on Disproportionate African American Child Deaths. Alarmed that in Sacramento County African American children die at very disproportional rates compared to other children, the Commission was an effort to activate the Sacramento community and engage resources to do something about it. Read the Blue Ribbon Commission Report.