About the Speaker: André M. Brown is an African American male who has had a lifetime of personally experiencing individual, institutional and structural racism. He earned an MS degree in Human Development and Family Studies and is also an International Coaching Federation (ICF) certified coach. He spent over two decades working multiple roles within the Rhode Island Department of Children, Youth and Families (RIDCYF). Most recently André served as a Clinical Training Specialist where he trained new hires and veteran Social Caseworkers and Child Protective Investigators to effectively serve children and families opened to the Department. In his role, he developed and facilitated several trainings including Cultural Competence in Child Welfare Through Self-Awareness I: The Impact of Implicit Bias and Understanding and Implementing Cultural Competence. In addition, André developed and coordinated the Child Protective Investigators’ team coaching program.

In late 2019, he left RIDCYF and relocated to Miami, Florida. In 2020, He founded Racial Just Us, an agency whose primary mission is to provide diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) focused coaching, consulting, training, facilitation and public speaking services. André developed the Coaching for Community Antiracism Series as a way to help participants create individualized antiracism action plans to affect change in themselves, workplaces and communities.