Iowa Department of Human Services
Racial Equity Awareness Learning Exchange
Race: The Power of an Illusion
9:00a – 4:00p Friday, July 27th, 2012
Facilitator: Khatib Waheed
Location: Des Moines Botanical Center
Willow Room
909 Robert D. Ray Drive
Des Moines, IA
Race: The Power of an Illusion. This session, The House We Live In, focuses on how historically our institutions
shape and create race, giving different groups vastly unequal life chances. It reveals how the Courts used race to
decide who was a citizen, and then used inconsistent racial categories to decide who was White and who was
not.
Session Objectives:
 Briefly describes how racial/ethnic disparities are manifest across a broad spectrum of child and family
well-being indicators and the importance of having “courageous conversations” about race, equity, and
child welfare and multi- systems reform.
 Focus on the institutional and structural levels of racism and impact on decisions, policies and practices
in child welfare and perpetuating stereotypes about children and families of color.
 Explain how our institutions and courts used public policy and inconsistent logic to define race and give
different racial and ethnic groups vastly unequal opportunities and access to life chances.
 Explore the development of certain child welfare policies and practices may have been influenced by the
evolving historic narrative about race in the US during this period.
 Helps to strengthen perspectives and commitment to ensure racially equitable treatment for children of
color and improve outcomes for all children.
Registration:
There is no fee for this workshop. This training does meet SW CEU requirements. Certificates will be provided to
all attendees. Lunch will be provided.
Please register by Tuesday, July 24th. To register provide the following information via email to Michelle Muir @
mmuir@dhs.state.ia.us or call (515) 281-8785. Seating is limited to the first 50.
Name: ____________________________________________
Phone: _____________________
Address: __________________________________________
e-mail: _____________________
Affiliation: (DHS, Court, Provider, etc.): __________________________
About the Facilitator
Khatib Waheed has recently begun working on a national level as a consultant, trainer and facilitator for various
judicial circuits, child welfare jurisdictions and organizations interested in improving services and outcomes for
children and families of color involved with child welfare. Prior to this role, he served from October 2003 to May
2011 as a Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of Social Policy (CSSP) in Washington, DC. While there Khatib
helped to initiate and lead CSSP's involvement with a national, multi-year campaign to safely reduce
disproportionality and disparities for children and families of color involved with the child welfare system called
the Alliance for Racial Equity in Child Welfare.
Prior to his work at CSSP, Khatib was a Senior Associate at the Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative which
focused on improving opportunities and outcomes for youths aging out of foster care. He has also served as a
Senior Associate for the Aspen Institute Roundtable on Comprehensive Community Initiatives where he helped
to develop “frameworks” for analyzing how structural and institutional racism and interpersonal bias have
helped to perpetuate long term disadvantages for African American and other children, families and
communities of color. During this same period he also served as the Special Assistant to the Director, Missouri
Department of Social Services, where he established a multi-agency coalition to help reduce youth violence,
drug trafficking and teen pregnancy in the St. Louis area.
In 1989, with support and funding from the Danforth Foundation and the Missouri Departments of Mental
Health, Social Services, Education and Health, Khatib was able to start the Walbridge Caring Communities
Program in a North St. Louis neighborhood called Walnut Park. The program was subsequently expanded to 20
schools in St. Louis and 100 throughout Missouri, receiving state-wide, national and international renown as an
innovative approach for delivering multiple family centered services, from a school-based setting, to families
whose children were at-risk of failing in school and being placed in foster care or juvenile detention. The Caring
Communities Program model has been studied and written about in numerous publications and books and has
been replicated both nationally and internationally.
Khatib has received numerous awards for his service to children, families and communities and holds a M. Ed.
from the University of Missouri – St. Louis and a B.A. in History and Political Science from Webster University,
with a Missouri Secondary Education Teaching Certificate in Social Studies. He has participated in policy
briefings at the White House, presented at several National Governor’s Association Conferences about the
needs of children and families and recently testified before Congress about disparities in foster care. He is also a
past participant in the International Initiative for Children, Youth and Families, which allowed him to visit both
the Netherlands and Israel to network with policy makers, field experts and researchers representing fifteen
countries about developing policy aimed at strengthening families and neighborhoods.