(February/March 2001)

In the late 1960's, when I was Executive Director of Spence Chapin Adoption Service, here in New York City, we had a City supported foster care program specifically to help remove infants from well baby hospital wards and place them in adoptive homes. We planned to return to full time private adoptions only, as soon as possible. We successfully placed many of the City children, mostly black, in adoption, but during that time, we placed ten times as many private white infants in adoptive homes. The white birth parents applied for service while pregnant, whereas, the black parents were sent to us after the fact, many with resentment. There were serious unmet child welfare needs in New York's black communities then, but the child care and adoption agencies were not there.

In 1969, Spence Chapin's board established the Harlem Dowling Children's Service in central Harlem, with private funds and foundation support, to better serve the child welfare and adoption needs there. We hoped more minority controlled agenies would be developed in other black communities in New York. We wanted Harlem Dowling to start with a minority staff and later integrate. We wanted this agency to be community managed, with its own charter, as soon as they could manage to do so. Their charter came in 1979.

Agencies in minority communities spend all of their time and expertise on their own Communities' needs. They can collaborate with other agencies, churches, schools, and Hospitals to provide a circle of service. Minorities because of color, language, and ethnic barriers, feel more comfortable and accepted at home. This is even more true now as many new ethnic minorities have moved into the minority areas. Racial and class attitudes prevail, "downtown".

As community needs change, the minority community based and controlled agency can plan programs accordingly. Harlem Dowling, for example, has expanded its programs to include an after school program for 350 children in three schools; mentally ill children are served in their own homes; other children are in a non foster care respite program; mothers and infants together are served in a group home, and victims of HIV/AIDS get intensive case management. Minority governed agencies know what their communities need and can decide when, how and what to deliver. Like all agencies, some more than others, they need public support.