New SDC research branch focuses on poverty and racism

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After realizing that the job it was doing was not the job it was created to do, the Social Development Commission, or SDC, began working to restructure itself.

The first step in restructuring the organization is to take a new approach to its research branch with the Institute on Poverty and Systemic Racism.

According to Wisconsin law, the SDC was established to “study, analyze, and recommend solutions to major social, economic, and cultural problems affecting persons residing or working within the local government unit.”

But over the years, the commission began to focus on meeting the immediate needs of the community.

“We were told right away that we weren’t doing what we were supposed to be doing,” said George Hinton, CEO of the Social Development Commission. “And so the board went through a strategic planning session and heard historically what we were supposed to do, and we concluded that we were doing almost nothing of what was supposed to be done as a commission. The SDC has the strange name of the Commission for Social Development because in fact it is the commission on poverty.

Through this institute, the SDC hopes to return to its roots and influence political change.

“We understand that the transactional services we’re known for are vital to our community, so we won’t stop them,” Hinton said. “But we are redirecting our energy to focus on research that can create transformational change.”

The SDC offers career, education, emergency and financial services such as GED courses and emergency rental assistance, among the services.

The institute’s first project, Dismantling Racism Invigorating Equity Together, will examine the impact of structural racism on Milwaukee’s African-American community.

According to Jennifer Harris, head of research and policy at the institute, the project spanned three years and was the result of ongoing conversations between him and his academic collaborators at Marquette, the Medical College of Wisconsin and UWM regarding the solutions to traumatic stress. commonly found among urban residents of Milwaukee and other cities.

“Our goal with this study is to collect data that illustrates the challenges and needs faced by the African-American community in Milwaukee, particularly in poor neighborhoods,” said Harris, who will oversee the institute. “Ultimately, the data we collect will be used to assess how our programming here at SDC meets the needs of the African American community in addition to informing elected leaders about how changes in public policy can meet the challenges facing the community.”

The project will interview residents of downtown Milwaukee to gather information about individual life experiences, health status and living environment. African Americans age 18 and older who live in Milwaukee are encouraged to inquire about participating in the research study. Participants will be reimbursed for their time.

“You can’t take the person out of the context of their experience during their treatment,” said Terri deRoon-Cassini, professor in the division of trauma surgery and acute care in the department of surgery at the Medical College of Wisconsin and principal investigator. of the new study, in a press release. “Not everyone has the same experience. If we want to achieve equity in health outcomes, we need to understand the different environments and experiences everyone has in life and the impact these differences have on people and their health.

Harris and Hinton hope the institute’s work will be a beacon for change in Milwaukee and surrounding cities.

“We take an engineer’s approach to city problems by breaking them down to the root,” Hinton said. “So rather than providing services to someone when they get out of jail, we want to make sure they never end up there in the first place.”

Because there are other research institutes in the city, the group said it hopes to complement what is already being done in this area.

“We’re not creating new research, we’re going to take research from around the world — it’s been done before — and bring it to Milwaukee,” Harris said. “So we don’t have to start from scratch. We are simply validating that the model matches what we see. People do a lot better in some parts of the world than we do in the United States, so we can take that in and start using that to create models for us.

For more information on the Institute on Poverty and Systemic Racism or its first project, you can look here.

If you would like to participate in the study, you can follow the opportunities on the SDC’s social networks.

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