Khatib Waheed

Khatib Waheed is a Senior Fellow, at the Center for the Study of Social Policy, in Washington, DC. He joined the staff in October 2003 to head up the Center's involvement with the Casey-CSSP Alliance for Racial Equity in Child Welfare, which is a new initiative to raise national awareness and generate policy reform and practice change to improve the experiences, treatment and outcomes for African American and other children of color in child welfare. Prior to his work at the Center, Khatib was an Associate Director for the Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative, which is a grant making foundation focused on ensuring that youth who age out of foster care will have successful transitions to adulthood. From 1999-2001, Khatib was a Senior Associate at the Aspen Institute Roundtable on Comprehensive Community Initiatives, where he worked as part of a team to develop a framework for defining and analyzing the effects of structural racism on children, families and communities of color. The framework has since been published and distributed nationally, and is currently being tested in some communities. During this same period he also served as the Special Assistant to the Director, Missouri Department of Social Services, where he established a multi-agency coalition to reduce youth violence, drug trafficking and teen pregnancy in the St. Louis area called the Regional Response Coalition (RRC).

Khatib has spent numerous years designing and implementing innovative public-private funding partnerships that combine the funding and resources of state agencies and school districts with the talents and concerns of parents, resident leaders, local agencies and law enforcement on how to utilize schools located in high risk neighborhoods as a base of service delivery, outreach and support for high risk children and families.

One of his more noteworthy contributions in this area was the multi-state agency public-private partnership established in 1989 called the Walbridge Caring Communities Program (WCCP). Under his leadership the program expanded in St. Louis from one program site to 20 over an eight year period. In 1994, after becoming a statewide initiative, it became known as Caring Communities and was established in over 100 schools throughout Missouri. The Caring Communities model has been studied and written about in numerous publications and books and has been replicated both nationally and internationally.
 
In 1997, an outgrowth of this work was the creation of a broader regional public-private funding partnership in the St. Louis area called ARCHS (Area Resources for Community and Human Services) for which he was its first director from 1997 -1999.

In 1989, responding to numerous requests from families, neighborhood residents, youth and school teachers to do something about the emergence of crack cocaine and the associated violence, Khatib broadened the community building strategy of the Walbridge Caring Communities Program by establishing bi-weekly drug marches, block units, neighborhood watch groups and gang outreach units. The goals were to increase child and family safety; increase access to needed substance abuse services; decrease the visibility of blatant drug trafficking in targeted neighborhoods; and improve police and community relations. As a result of those efforts over a 15 year period in several neighborhoods, countless individuals have received substance abuse services, approximately one hundred and fifty drug houses have been closed, numerous drug and violence convictions have occurred, police and neighborhood-community relations have improved and the levels of resident participation in community concerns has increased.

Khatib has received numerous awards for his service to children, families and communities and holds a M. Ed. from the University of Missouri - St. Louis and a B.A. in History and Political Science from Webster University, with a Missouri Secondary Education Teaching Certificate in Social Studies. He has participated in policy briefings at the White House and testified during several National Governor's Association Conferences about children and families. Khatib is also a past participant in the International Initiative for Children, Youth and Families, through which he has visited both the Netherlands and Israel to network with policy makers, field experts and researchers representing fifteen countries about developing policy aimed at strengthening families and neighborhoods.