January 22, 2020
Page 5
Putting Kids and Families First
C ontinued froM f ront
Multnomah County Health De-
partment” and other community
organizations, she said.
“We are uniquely at the begin-
ning of the development continu-
um,” she said. “We have this kind
of “born to learn” program and
what we are doing with parents
and mothers – before they give
birth – to help prepare them for
educating their children.”
That’s just the beginning, she
said, and after home visits are
complete, BPI steers parents to-
ward educational programs such
as Albina Head Start and KairosP-
DX, a public charter school and
nonprofit with the goal of closing
the education achievement gap for
black children.
“Those are very culturally
specific and affirming organiza-
tions that serve a large popula-
tion of our community members
– African and African American
and African American bi-racial
families,” she said. “We just
want to make sure that we’re
strong on the front end of that
continuum, making sure that all
the services that we offer have
sustainable funding streams, that
people understand how they’re
all connected to learning, and
how learning is very much con-
nected to being able to be sta-
ble and also support social and
emotional wellbeing. Those are
all things that are very critical to
this community.”
Overton said that BPI has seven
full-time staff members, two stu-
dent interns, a student with a bach-
elor of social work, and will soon
have several students getting their
master’s in social work.
The agency is outgrowing its
space at 2915 N.E. Martin Luther
King Jr. Blvd., and will soon be
looking for a new home, she said.
“We’re going to hire a new di-
rector of maternal health and some
more home visiting people,” she
said.
As with most nonprofits, BPI
relies on donations and will have a
big fundraising gala in May, when
Overton will introduce herself
to funders. In the meantime, she
said she will continue to focus on
increasing awareness of BPI, in-
cluding a book drive with Barnes
and Noble in February,
Before getting into administra-
tion, Overton was a social worker
and child and family therapist for
16 years, then worked for about
four years for the Chalkboard
Project, working with school su-
perintendents and teacher leaders
“to center equity not only in their
cultural centers, but in their prac-
tices and strategies.”
Overton is close to complet-
ing her doctorate in social work,
focusing on black girls in foster
care, and she gave one example
of how missing cultural clues can
have deleterious effects.
“I had a girl getting into fights
and they said she was defiant
with schizoid tendencies, she’s
depressed — all those things,”
she said. “But I discovered she
was in a home with parents who
were not African American who
did not know how to care for her
hair, so she was going to school
getting teased by black and white
C ontinued on p age 12
b everly C orbell /
t he p ortland o bserver
Bahia Overton, the new
executive director of Portland’s
Black Parent Initiative, puts
her focus on improving the
cultural awareness social
workers and others have in
providing resources to the black
community and growing support
for BPI programs to help black
kids and black families become
successful.
photo by