County and community partners mark 10 years of Black Child Legacy Campaign; mixed trends in preventable child‑death metrics prompt call to sustain funding

County and community partners told the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday that a decade of coordinated, locally led prevention work under the Black Child Legacy Campaign (BCLC) has produced measurable reductions in several categories of preventable child deaths — but that COVID‑era data and other trends underscore the need to sustain funding and expand services.

The cross‑sector program, developed after a 2011 review documented that African American children were dying at disproportionately higher rates than other populations, coordinates community incubator lead sites (CILs), culturally focused outreach, safe‑sleep education and other prevention strategies in seven neighborhoods. County departments, philanthropic partners and nonprofit providers presented programmatic updates and community testimony for the board.

“BCLC is a collective impact effort: shared goals, shared measures, continuous communication and a backbone organization to keep the work coordinated,” said Shelby Boston, director of the Department of Child, Family & Adult Services (DCFAS). Boston provided the Board with first‑quarter operational and training updates for county‑run Welcome Homes and summarized DCFAS investments in culture broker staff and BCLC programs.

Kim Pearson (DCFAS) said culture brokers — community‑based navigators…