Building Community for Sustainable Success in STEAM: A Tribute to Celebrate Black Women

In research and practice, leveraging parent and adult support when engaging youth in STEAM learning activities has been demonstrated as a best practice, especially for youth of color. The Digital Youth Divas out-of-school STEAM program serves as an example of intentional efforts to build and foster meaningful relationships with Black and Brown families by helping principal investigators and program leads understand impact. It also informs best practices of family engagement for the collective ecosystem of STEAM program partners that aim to serve black, Indigenous and people of color (BIPOC) youth and their families within the urban community for which the program operates. By providing a platform for black parents and caring adults, specifically those that identify as women, to share their experiences as learning support agents and efforts they’ve championed for their youth of color participating in STEAM learning, this symposium seeks to capture the black woman’s voice through a moderated conversation grounded in celebration and presented in an interactive storytelling format.