Black Nurses Partner To Mentor Black Children

SILVER SPRING, MD - The National Black Nurses Association and the National CARES Mentoring Movement have signed a three year partnership to recruit and train NBNA members to serve as community based mentors in helping to close the education gap with our Nation’s Black children.

“Partnering with the National CARES Mentoring Movement is a natural extension of the mentoring programs that the 83 NBNA chapters already offer at the local level. Mentoring young people relative to their educational needs will only help all of us as we too try to diversify and increase the number of people in the health professions pipeline”, stated Dr. Debra A. Toney, President, National Black Nurses Association.

The National Black Nurses Association was formed in 1971 to facilitate the mobilization of Black nurses to play a more meaningful role to improve the health care needs and thus the health status of Black people.

The NBNA mission is to “provide a forum for collective action by Black nurses to investigate, define and advocate for the health care needs of African Americans and to implement strategies that ensure access to health care, equal to, or above health care standards of the larger society”.

Headed by Susan L. Taylor, former editor of Essence Magazine, the National CARES Mentoring Movement, a nonprofit 501(c) (3) organization, is the largest national organization in the Black mentoring arena serving our vulnerable children.

With CARES Mentor-Recruitment Circles in 57 U.S. cities, its mission is to close the huge gap between the relatively few Black mentors and the millions of vulnerable Black children in need of mentoring.

The sole purpose of National CARES is ending the state of emergency in education among poor Black children. CARES recruits and trains caring adults and deploys them to schools, literacy and other academic-support programs, mentoring organizations and juvenile reentry programs, where they serve as mentors, tutors and role models.

“NBNA believes in mentoring at all levels; from the elementary school level to the post doctoral level. NBNA is encouraging all members to become mentors so that young people will have a better chance to advance to their educational and career goals”, stated Dr. Toney.