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State of Our Black Youth

In 2007, Indiana Black Expo, Inc. collaborated with the Indiana Youth Institute to develop the biennial edition of the State of Our Black Youth (SOBY) report, which presented statewide statistics on the health and well-being of African American youth in Indiana. The purpose of this Lilly Endowment-funded SOBY report was to develop practices to address the challenges and enhance the strengths identified by the report’s data through local, state, and federal public policy efforts, needs assessments, program planning, fundraising, and public relations.

Findings included:

• Almost two-thirds of African American families in Indiana were headed by a single parent, more than three-quarters of births were to unmarried parents, and the Indiana teen birth rate for African American girls aged 15 to 19 exceeded the national average.
• Twenty-five percent fewer African American children lived in poverty in 2005 than the rate for African American children nationally. However, child poverty among Black Hoosiers increased more than 30% between 2000 and 2005.
• While fewer than half of Black ninth graders graduate four years later during their senior year of high school, this rate increased more than 5% between 2000 and 2006.
• The rate of Black students intending to enroll in vocational/technical school or two and four-year colleges increased between 2003 and 2006.
• Black children in Indiana have higher rates of sexual abuse, neglect, and physical abuse than Black children in the United States.

Proposed solutions included:

• Improving chances for positive child outcomes through the provision of increased resources for teen pregnancy prevention programs with proven track records, and public education campaigns that use research-based methods to promote and support healthy marriages.
• Improving economic opportunity by increasing investments in worker training, devoting significant resources to training workers with low skill levels, customizing and targeting training for “hard-to-employ,” entry-level, and low-wage individuals who may be unemployed or employed in low skill, low wage jobs.
• Improving student achievement by providing programs for Black students with demanding curricula and strong social support systems, as well as increasing teacher qualifications, offering financial incentives to qualified teachers, reducing class sizes, and providing school choice for students in low-performing schools.
• Improving family relationships through the provision of increased resources for family-centered, community-based approaches to child protection and respite care services.

Read the complete 2007 State of Our Black Youth Biennial Edition.

This year, IBE has commissioned another State of Our Black Youth (SOBY) report to be prepared by Engaging Solutions, LLC in collaboration with The Polis Center.  Polis will be involved in identifying and collecting data, generating statistics, and visualizing the data using tables, charts, graphs, and maps. The 2012 SOBY report will help us to understand and evaluate the condition of African American youth, gather and disseminate comprehensive data, and ensure appropriate services and programs are allocated proportionately.

Visit our blog again next week to learn more about this exciting project. And don’t forget to check out the annual IBE Summer Celebration, which kicked off July 12 and will continue through July 22! Visit IBE’s website to learn more about this year’s events.