June 5, 2020
The Florida Association of Infant Mental Health (FAIMH) is committed to promoting both reflection and action to deepen the conversation and to foster self-awareness so that each of us can acknowledge and address the structural racism, implicit bias, and injustices that impact the well-being of the families we serve. We are also keeping in mind our infant and early childhood professionals of color who carry out this work in holding a safe space for the families’ experiences, giving voice to their pain, while managing their own emotions.
As an organization, we stand in solidarity with communities across the nation who are speaking the unspeakable, committing ourselves to mitigate the chronic racism and trauma that has affected children of color, their families, and our infant and early childhood workforce.
Our Board of Directors and Chapter leaders throughout Florida stand in solidarity with our community partners across the state who see, experience, and respond to racism and injustice through the work they do across many sectors. We are committed to supporting you and learning from you as we collectively work to examine our implicit bias and bring awareness to the work we do with families of color.
We close with these words from our partners at Child-Parent Psychotherapy:
“As a community that is dedicated to addressing the impact of trauma, we ask you to reflect on what you will do as individuals, as members of systems, and as members of our larger US society to actively address the forces within us and around us that contributes to the existence of racism and its associated crimes.
No need to answer with what you are doing. Our hope is that we will all reflect and act in a deep and enduring way, so that we work to end this cycle of historical violence.”
We invite you to join us in the work—work that each of us has to do for ourselves, work that no one can do for us.
Respectfully,
Florida Association for Infant Mental Health Board of Directors and Chapter Chairs