Black Youth Equity: Ages 14+
Empowering the next generation through equity, advocacy, and collaborative growth.
Service Description
The Black Youth Equity Initiative is a healing-centered intensive for Black youth and young adults focused on identity, emotional survival, trauma, resilience, accountability, and healing. The program offers a structured, supportive space to explore lived experience while connecting personal narratives to systems, culture, and community. Through interactive workshops, restorative circles, storytelling, media literacy, creative expression, and wellness practices, participants strengthen emotional awareness, communication skills, coping strategies, and leadership development. Core themes include adolescence and identity formation, bias and perception, cultural expression, gender and body narratives, emotional survival responses, systemic harm, and pathways toward healing and accountability. Grounded in a healing-centered framework, the program prioritizes understanding over shame, healing over punishment, prevention over criminalization, and empowerment over labeling. Participants explore how environments shape development, how survival strategies form, and how healing can be practiced in everyday life. Each session follows a consistent trauma-informed structure. Participants begin with nourishment and grounding in a calm, welcoming environment designed for connection and regulation. Core workshops follow, focusing on identity, trauma, systems, and emotional development. Mid-session time allows for rest, reflection, and informal connection with optional quiet spaces and grounding supports. Sessions continue with experiential learning such as art-based processing, spoken word, roleplay, restorative dialogue, and collaborative projects. Each session ends with reflection, affirmations, and wellness supports to extend learning beyond the space. The curriculum moves through layered themes: identity under pressure, misperception of youth behavior, cultural expression and social judgment, gender and body narratives, emotional masking and hypervigilance, institutional discipline and surveillance, survival-based coping, and ultimately healing, leadership, and future-building. Each theme supports reflection on how participants are seen, how they respond to stress, and how identity can be reclaimed beyond survival. Grouped by age. Ages 14-17 and 18-24
Upcoming Sessions
Cancellation Policy
Welcome to Grounded Stars! Participant Group Rules — Please Read Carefully There are no refunds. Please reach out if you need to reschedule your missed class. We're happy to help. Our group spaces are designed to be safe, supportive, and protected spaces for youth and young adults. To keep it that way, everyone must follow these important rules while participating in any class, workshop, or group session. Camera Rules Cameras must stay ON during the entire session so we can protect the group and make sure everyone is really who they say they are. If you need to step away, you must tell the facilitator in chat or on camera before leaving. You can only be away for up to 10 minutes. If your camera is off and you ignore two reminders from the facilitator, you will be removed from the session for safety reasons. Respect and Behavior Rules Always show respect to other participants and facilitators. No bullying, harassment, or disrespectful language. No foul language, slurs, or hateful speech — this is a safe zone for everyone. Be open-minded and supportive of others, no matter their background or life experiences. Privacy and Safety Rules No sharing your contact information (phone numbers, social media, email, addresses) in the group or after the group. Do not ask for or pressure anyone else to share their personal information. You must be alone on camera, with no friends or family joining your screen unless it’s a family program. They can sit beside you. You must join from a quiet, safe space with no background distractions like loud TV, phone calls, or music. Dress Code You must be FULLY dressed in public-appropriate clothing during all sessions. Time and Attendance Be on time! The session will start on time, and anyone joining late may not be allowed in. Frequent lateness, disruptive behavior, or ignoring these rules will lead to removal from the group and may impact your ability to join future programs. By joining our group, you agree to follow these rules. Repeated or serious violations will result in being removed from the group, and we will notify your guardian or case manager if needed. We want this space to feel good for everyone — let’s keep it safe, focused, and supportive!
Contact Details
535 Fifth Avenue 4th floor, New York, NY, USA
9142944639
kierra@groundedstars.com