Increasing Access to Trauma Informed Wellness Services
The African American Leadership Forum (AALF), the Cultural Wellness Center, and Relationships LLC. are coming together in a unique partnership. Building on each organization’s strengths, this collaboration will unleash the power of citizens to heal themselves and to build community.
In addition, all of our hearts are in this work. The community that we connect is our own, the people that benefit are ours. We believe in this work and together we will bring strength, vision and organization to benefit our city and our community.
It is this position of bringing a unified voice that AALF and its community partners, the Cultural Wellness Center and Dr. Reid, offers its services to the City of Minneapolis’ Division of Race and Equity to design and implement a process that tracks the ReCAST program objectives as stated in the Trauma and Resilience Services & Capacity Building RFP.
The mission of the African American Leadership Forum (AALF) is to establish a just and healthy society that works equally well for everyone. AALF strives for a vital and healthy African American community, focusing on four core themes: (1) Economic Development: building wealth in the African American community, (2) Education: closing the achievement gap for African American students, (3) Health & Wellness: promoting healthy living through personal, community, and legislative change; and (4) Family & Culture: supporting activities and programming that make Black families and communities stronger.
The mission of the Cultural Wellness Center is to unleash the power of citizens to heal themselves and to build community. Founded in 1996, the Cultural Wellness Center is one of the primary community and cultural knowledge-production organizations in the Twin Cities region. We are about people, from people, and for people. We partner with organizations, institutions, and people within communities to develop models to solve problems and create lasting solutions. Our People’s Theory of Sickness states that individualism, loss of culture, and loss of community is what makes people sick. Individualism, loss of culture, and loss of community is the only problem the Cultural Wellness Center is attempting to solve.
Relationships,LLC. was founded by Dr. Joseph Reid. As the Principal and Founder of Relationships, LLC., Dr. Reid desires to educate and be a vital component of a student-therapist’s development which is grounded in cultural awareness, academic insight, community inclusiveness and self-awareness, while growing to be a competent and gifted therapist in the field.
Relationships, LLC
Serving individuals, couples, families & community
Cultural Health & Wellness Directory
Recovering Resilience and building the Capacity of Cultural Practitioners to Service African American, Indigenous and people of color communities.
In 2016, the City of Minneapolis was selected to participate in the Resilience in Communities after Stress & Trauma (ReCAST) Program through a multi-year grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). ReCAST is intended to assist youth in high-risk geographies and their families and promote resilience and equity in communities that have recently faced civil unrest through implementation of evidence-based violence prevention and community youth engagement programs, as well as linkages to trauma-informed behavioral health services. SAMHSA created the ReCAST Program to support communities that have lived through demonstrations of mass protest in response to police-involved shootings of unarmed African-American males. It is also intended to help those communities with high rates of violence develop trauma-informed approaches.
Minneapolis is one of eight cities nationwide that received this grant award, working across communities of color, immigrant and refugee communities, and American Indian communities to build power in our community, build power collectively, and shift systems together.
