Introduction

Supporting Healthy Black Elders (SHBE) is a Supporting Healthy Black Families (SHBF) workgroup that honors, centers, and supports Black elders to live with vitality, purpose, and deep connection. Rooted in Black lived experience, this workgroup is a homecoming—restoring dignity, joy, and belonging at a stage of life too often shaped by isolation, loss, and systemic neglect.

This is not about slowing down or fading out. This is applied, embodied SHBF learning that affirms elders as leaders, wisdom-keepers, and cultural anchors—supporting them to move from survival and solitude toward wellness, agency, and collective care within their families and communities.

Why This Work Matters

For generations, Black elders have carried the weight of systemic racism, economic exclusion, caregiving burdens, and unacknowledged grief—often while receiving limited support in healthcare, housing, and community systems. Too often, aging is framed as decline rather than continuation.

Through the SHBF framework, this workgroup interrupts that narrative. Elders are supported in reclaiming joy, strengthening emotional regulation, processing loss and transition, and building confidence as they navigate systems that directly affect their quality of life. By centering elders as living libraries and active contributors, SHBElders strengthens families, preserves cultural memory, and reinforces intergenerational stability and healing.

Our Proven Approach

Supporting Healthy Black Elders integrates SHBF’s trauma-informed, Black-centered curriculum with facilitated dialogue, peer connection, and healing-centered activities designed specifically for elders. Participants engage in reflective learning, storytelling, and collective problem-solving that honor lived experience while supporting growth, agency, and emotional well-being.

The workgroup intentionally creates space to address grief, caregiving fatigue, health advocacy, and life transitions—while also cultivating joy, creativity, and meaningful connection. Learning happens through relationship, shared experience, and community-building, reinforcing SHBF’s belief that transformation happens within family systems, not in isolation.

Who Should Join

This workgroup is for Black adults ages 55 and older who are ready to:

• Invest in their emotional, physical, and spiritual well-being
• Build meaningful relationships in a culturally affirming, judgment-free space
• Navigate healthcare, housing, and community systems with greater confidence
• Process life transitions such as retirement, caregiving, loss, or changing family roles
• Reclaim joy, purpose, and connection in the next chapter of life
• Share wisdom while continuing to grow, heal, and lead

Elders living alone, grandparents raising grandchildren, caregivers, and those seeking deeper community and belonging are all welcome.

Results That Speak for Themselves

• Elders report increased joy, emotional well-being, and a sense of belonging
• Participants strengthen self-advocacy in healthcare, housing, and community spaces
• Families experience deeper intergenerational connection and shared healing
• Elders reclaim their role as leaders, teachers, and cultural anchors

Supporting Healthy Black Elders produces outcomes that are personal, relational, and generational—ensuring Black elders live fully, visibly, and with dignity.

Weekly Workgroup Sessions
A structured, healing-centered curriculum rooted in Supporting Healthy Black Families (SHBF) and designed specifically for Black elders. Sessions focus on emotional wellness, self-advocacy, storytelling, and leadership—supporting elders to navigate life transitions with clarity, confidence, and connection.

Collective Healing & Reflection
Facilitated conversations and reflective practices that create space to process grief, loss, caregiving fatigue, and generational trauma, while also cultivating joy, creativity, and meaning. Elders are supported in honoring their experiences and releasing burdens that no longer serve them.

Health, Housing & Systems Navigation Support
Practical guidance and advocacy support to help elders navigate healthcare, housing, benefits, and community systems. Participants build tools to strengthen their voice, ask for what they need, and protect their dignity in spaces that often overlook or dismiss elders.

Culturally Rooted Community & Care

• $25 weekly stipend to support participation
• Healthy meals provided during sessions
• Transportation support as needed
• Peer connection with other Black elders in a culturally affirming space
• Staff support and referrals to trusted community resources

Ongoing Connection & Belonging
Consistent with SHBF values, support extends beyond weekly sessions. Elders remain connected to community, resources, and opportunities for continued engagement—because healing, leadership, and belonging do not end with age.