Sacramento County’s campaign to keep Black children alive worked. Here’s how

Year after year, in some of Sacramento County’s poorest and disinvested neighborhoods, Black children were dying at a higher rate than children of other ethnic groups.

Infants died sleeping next to their parents or siblings. Mothers gave birth to stillborn babies, or babies who lived just a few days. Teenagers were gunned down. Some were abused and neglected.

From 2010 to 2015, nearly a quarter of the 873 children who died in the county were Black, although they make up just 11 percent of the population in that age group, a Sacramento Bee investigation found.

The decades-long trend would ultimately spur the creation of a landmark, collaborative effort in 2015 led by health advocates, community organizers, social workers and elected officials: The Black Child Legacy Campaign.

The mandate was simple: Reduce preventable deaths of Black children under 18 by at least 10% by 2020. Five years later, the campaign has exceeded almost all expectations, leaders say.

“I’m so incredibly proud of the work we’ve been able to do and the lives we’ve been able to save,” said campaign lead Kindra Montgomery-Block. “As a community we came together.”

According to new results shared with the Board of Supervisors last week, the county saw the rate of Black child deaths drop by 30% and the rate of Black infant deaths drop by 19% by 2018, the most recently available data released.

As part of the Black Child Legacy Campaign, seven neighborhood centers receive $120,000 annually to offer a plethora of programs and services designed to prevent Black childhood death: Case managers helped connect families to government aid. Nighttime youth-focused events kept teens out of trouble. Expecting mothers received safe sleeping habits education, free cribs and home visits. Parents enrolled in anger management training and parenting classes.

The smorgasbord of both innovative and tried-and-tested programs worked. The effort has allowed social workers and community advocates to forge and strengthen new relationships, Montgomery-Block told the board, in meaningful ways. For example, advocates are now in close contact with local hospitals and law enforcement officials to help keep the peace between teens after a shooting.

“We are partnered with UC Davis and Kaiser. We are a team,” she said. “I have them on speed dial on my phone because we know the best way to prevent gun violence is to get in front of the rumor.”

Between education campaigns, pregnancy mentors and case managers, probation officers, human assistance specialists, new programming and more, the county estimates it has invested nearly $40 million into the effort thus far.

The county saw the three-year rolling average rate of infant sleep-related deaths drop 51% by 2018. Over the same period, child deaths due to abuse and neglect declined dramatically, down 88%.

“This is one of those initiatives that this county can be extremely proud of,” Board Chair Phil Serna said last week. “It’s years in the making, we’re seeing the outcomes that we had hoped for and then some.”

The campaign was borne out of a blue-ribbon commission that Serna commissioned in 2011 that focused on disparities in deaths among Black children.

That commission found that over a 20-year period, Black children made up 12% of the child population, but accounted for 25 percent of all perinatal deaths, 32 percent of all infant sleep-related deaths, 30 percent of child abuse and neglect homicides and 32 percent of all third-party homicides in Sacramento County.

“It’s very rewarding, I can tell you, to sit here nine years later and reflect on where we were and where we’ve come,” Serna said.

There is more work to be done, campaign leaders said. Infant perinatal death rates have not changed much as of 2018, the most recent data available. The coronavirus pandemic, which has forced children and teens into months of isolation without access to in-person school or afterschool programs, has led to an increase in gun violence and homicides this year that threatens gains made by the campaign.

But leaders with the campaign are confident the campaign has created a foundational network to bend those trends in a positive direction. It’s been a “proven health equity and racial justice strategy,” Greater Sacramento Urban League president and CEO Cassandra Jennings told supervisors last week.

Last month, Sacramento County declared racism a public health crisis, in a resolution acknowledging the county should have a more active role — when making policy and funding programs — in rectifying longstanding issues around race.

Efforts like the Black Child Legacy Campaign not only helped illuminate the ways poverty and racist policies have left thousands of families and young people behind, but also addressed the legacy of racism in public health head-on. To sustain results thus far, and make good on the promise of that resolution, leaders of the campaign urged the supervisors to continue funding programs such as Black Child Legacy in next year’s budget and beyond.

“Now the board of supervisors are caught with a moral question: Are you going to continue to fund this work?” Montgomery-Block said. She concluded her presentation to the board by asking, “Can you imagine come June 30 and Black Child Legacy Campaign is no longer?”

“I can’t,” she continued. “And neither can these neighborhoods that really need it the most.”

This story was originally published December 19, 2020 at 5:00 AM.