Copyright CBS News
It's a troubling statistic: Black children have a higher rate of dying from preventable deaths than any other race in Sacramento County. For ten years, county leaders have been spending millions of dollars trying to reverse that trend. CBS13 got a look at what impact Sacramento's Black Child Legacy Campaign is having on the community. Sade, who only wanted to be identified by her first name, is a participant in the Black Child Legacy program and has seven children — four girls and three boys. She said the program has helped keep her family healthy. The program teaches parents life skills and how to protect their kids from serious injury or death. "I was a high-risk pregnancy, and I was given mental health services as well as different group opportunities," Sade said. Jeremiah Jordan, another program participant, echoed similar sentiments. "I love what they do, honestly, especially for the community and the youth that look like me," he said. Jordan grew up participating in after-school programs funded by Black Child Legacy. He said it helps steer teens away from trouble like gangs and drugs. "The pressure is very hard," he said. "I've seen with a lot of my peers that there's no other choice, there's no other way out, that they have to do these things." Sacramento County created Black Child Legacy 10 years ago, after years of African American children dying at twice the rate of other races. "It was heartbreaking to find out the numbers, but then to get a program that's going to chip away at those numbers [was] amazing," said Franschelle Brown, another parent participating in the program. Now, a decade later, those behind the program say they're seeing some success, with the overall death rate of Black youth down by 9% and the number of kids dying from abuse and neglect down 61%. "In the last year, we've been able to case manage almost 3,000 families," Black Child Legacy Campaign program officer Jedida Gomes said. Still, other goals have not been met. The number of Black children being murdered has actually gone up 46% over that same timeframe. The program costs taxpayers $9 million a year to operate. Supporters say it's a pricetag that's much cheaper than doing nothing. "Prevention is less expensive than response, and so when we have to intervene, we're spending much more," Gomes said. Gomes said the program hopes to one day end the dramatic disparity of deaths that has taken so many young lives. "Black children should have the same experience as any other child here in Sacramento County," Gomes said. The program currently has resource centers in seven different Sacramento County neighborhoods, and they plan on expanding into Rancho Cordova next year.
