New 7,000-square-foot facility opens for youth in North Palm Springs

Janiah Williams, 12, center, causes her classmates to erupt in laughter while participating in a role-playing exercise during the Rites of Passage program at the Building Resilience in African American Families youth facility in Palm Springs, Calif., on February 17, 2021.

On Wednesday afternoon, a team of about 15 middle university ladies sat in a unfastened circle in a classroom at the 1st Baptist Church in Palm Springs, the new dwelling of the Family members Well being & Assist Network’s Building Resilience in African American Family members system. 

Four Queens ended up requested to volunteer for a function-playing exercise (the software refers to male students as Kings and female students as Queens). The girls improvised a faux evening meal conversation based on their assigned roles. One woman was an “more than-sharer,” yet another regularly interrupted, one only spoke to just one other man or woman and the fourth was a “one-upper,” this means she 1-upped the other girls’ reviews. 

By the finish of the workout, the course was shrieking with laughter as the women exaggeratingly acted out the condition whilst the a single-upper bragged about acquiring new footwear. 

But as Sandra Austin, co-founder and CEO of the Household Well being & Assist Network, began conveying the stage of the work out, the girls rapidly quieted and listened intently. 

Kaajay Carey, 13, left, and Janiah Williams, 12, raise their hand to volunteer during the Rites of Passage program at the Building Resilience in African American Families youth facility in Palm Springs, Calif., on February 17, 2021.

“What this demonstrates is this was not a serious conversation, for the reason that who listened to who? Where by was the compound? When you might be in a team, if you have someone who is a a person-upper or an about-sharer, does that make everybody else want to talk? We did a demonstration but we want to unpack it, and one particular-upping is a behavior that has anything at the rear of it,” she said.