Partner Spotlight: Josselyn Taylor, Community Engagement Strategist, Cradle Cincinnati & Queens Village
In 2011, Hamilton County, Ohio, had one of the highest infant mortality rates in the nation. Cradle Cincinnati was founded in 2013 with the mission to eliminate infant mortality in Hamilton County. Five years later, its leaders recognized that achieving this goal required addressing the racial disparities driving infant mortality. Queens Village, a program created to offer safe space for Black mothers to support, and be supported by, their peers, grew from this realization.
We are delighted to feature Josselyn Taylor, Community Engagement Strategist for both Cradle Cincinnati and Queens Village, in our latest Partner Spotlight.
”The main purpose of mutual aid is reliance among community members. We’ve been able to create that in Cincinnati, and if we can do it here, then these villages and communities can absolutely be built in other places too—that is impact.”
Josselyn Taylor,
Community Engagement Strategist
Cradle Cincinnati & Queens Village
You’ve been involved with the Queens Village program the start. Can you tell us how it began?
Queens Village started in 2018 with about 10 of us talking around Meredith Shockley-Smith’s (Cradle Cincinnati’s Executive Director) kitchen table. From those conversations, we were able to develop a strategy for change by asking Black women in the community, “What is it that you want to see? Where is the barrier? Where is the gap? What do you need, and how can we help?” And then—we went and did it.
We started building the program in 2019. It was at a time that felt right to have conversations about how racism was impacting different areas of Black people's lives—and how, not only was it impacting us mentally and physically, but also literally impacting our health. We had poor health outcomes because of racism. Our babies were dying because of racism.
Queens Village’s work is centered around five pillars. The first is: Black women deserve an opportunity to rest, relax, and repower. Every single woman we talked to said: I am stressed. I'm stressed by the responsibility that I hold in my household. I'm stressed by the responsibility that I have at work. I'm stressed by racism. I'm stressed by sexism. I'm stressed by the interaction of those two things. And I need some opportunities where I can just relax. So, the core of our work is addressing Black women's stress—providing them with opportunities to de-stress, positive coping mechanisms, and also a sense of community.
What changes have you seen in the last five years?
Queens Village has grown tremendously. We’ve hosted over 1,000 events since we launched, for thousands of women. We’ve also grown from one chapter to 13—expanding across the state and into Tulsa, Kansas City, Miami, and Atlanta. I get very excited about this, because I know what Black women can do when they're listened to and their recommendations are acted upon.
When we started, there were a lot of questions about how the work was going to help shift numbers for infant mortality. A lot of times when we’re providing opportunities for women to de-stress, It looks like a party. We’ve had a lot of people wonder what that had to do with anything—but here we are today. We have Black women situated all over the city who are shifting policy, and we have seen the numbers shift in a meaningful way too. In 2023, Hamilton County had the lowest infant mortality rate on record. Although we can't take all the credit, I do think that providing a space for Black women to be listened to has helped.
Collaboration and the idea of collective impact are central to your approach. Can you tell us about the work you are doing on mutual aid?
For the last several years, our work has focused on reducing infant health disparities. We've done a lot of that work by collaborating with doulas, birth workers, lactation consultants, and birth educators. And we've also listened to the women who often hold these positions. We've heard how they are not well resourced, how they they often struggle to serve the community that they're most interested in, because they're Black women as well, dealing with all the stresses that Black women deal with: the lack of resources, the lack of funding, the lack of money, the lack of support.
Our birth worker mutual aid fund, The Estuary of Us, came about because we recognized that we can't pour blood from a stone. We can’t keep asking women to sacrifice themselves for the good of the community with little support. If we want them to continue to be able to do that, they need support as well.
Mutual aid funds are community-driven initiatives where people pool resources and share them based on need, encouraging connection, solidarity, and sustainability. So, we’ve engaged a Black Birth Worker Board, and they are working together to determine what the eligibility criteria for the fund will be, what type of partners we want to have, and how we can really have the ‘mutual aid’ part of this mutual aid fund operating.
Black Birth Worker Board, from L to R: Ashely Felts, Cheryl Smith, Julietta Ladipo, Danielle Gentry, Jamaica Gilliam, Myla Perry, Jocquelene Pressley, Josselyn Taylor. Photo courtesy of Cradle Cincinnati.
Lastly, when you think about your work, how do you define community engagement—and what does impact look like to you?
Even if things fell away, even if we weren’t funded again, I know that there is a Black woman community here. There's a village that is going to persist. There are friends that have been made. There are relationships that have been made. There are children I know and think of like my own, and people know my children in the same way. That's something that can't be taken away. That's what I think of when I think of community engagement—the village that we've been able to create.
The main purpose of mutual aid is reliance among community members. We’ve been able to create that in Cincinnati, and if we can do it here, then these villages and communities can absolutely be built in other places too—that is impact.