Prior to becoming an independent consultant, Khatib served as a Senior Fellow with the Center for the Study of Social Policy (CSSP) in Washington, DC from October 2003 to May 2011. While there, his primary role was to help design  and launch a national effort called the Alliance for Racial Equity in Child Welfare.to bring national attention to the disproportionate representation and disparate treatment of children and families of color involved with the child welfare system. Casey Family Programs, Annie E. Casey and Casey Family Services, Marguerite Casey Foundation, the Black Administrators in Child Welfare (BACW)  and the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ), represented the critical national partners who provided critical funding, resources, and expertise to the effort.

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From 2001 to 2003, Khatib worked as Senior Associate for the Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative, which focused on improving opportunities and outcomes for youths transitioning from foster care to adulthood. From 1999 to 2001, Khatib served as Senior Associate with the Aspen Institute Roundtable on Comprehensive Community Initiatives. While there, he collaborated with other staff and executive leaders to develop frameworks and tools to better analyze and explicate how structural and institutional racism ad implicit bias have worked to perpetuate long term disadvantages for African Americans and other children, families, and communities of color. During this same period, Khatib also served as the Special Assistant to the Director, Missouri Department of Social Services, where he established a multi-agency coalition to help reduce youth violence, drug trafficking and teen pregnancy in the St. Louis area. 
 

From 1997 to 1999, Khatib Waheed became the founding Executive Director of the Area Resources for Community and Human Services (ARCHS) – intended initially to serve as Missouri’s fiscal intermediary and Community Partnership for the St. Louis’ Caring Community Programs. 
 
From 1989 to 1997, with support and funding from the Danforth Foundation and the Missouri Departments of Mental Health, Social Services, Education and Health, Khatib Waheed co-designed and implemented the Walbridge Caring Communities Program (WCCP) in a North St. Louis neighborhood called Walnut Park. 
 
Under Khatib’s leadership, the Walbridge Caring Community Program (WCCP) was expanded from one school to twenty schools located throughout the City of St. Louis. The immediate success and increasing notoriety of the WCCP led to the four state agencies devising variations of the approach to one hundred schools throughout the State of Missouri. WCCP received state-wide, national, and even international renown for its innovative approach to delivering multi – level, family-centered resources, programs, and services to families whose children were: at-risk of failing in school; experiencing harm in their home; and being placed in foster care or juvenile detention. The WCCP model has been studied and written about in various publications and books. Over the years various community partners have sought information about the lessons learned in an attempt to explore possibilities for replication.

Khatib has been invited to participate in policy briefings at the White House and  during  National Governor’s Association Conferences about the needs of children and families. While doing national work with the Alliance for Racial Equity, he was called upon to testify before Congress about racial disparities in foster care. 

Khatib 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. 

Khatib Waheed has received numerous awards for his service to children, families, and communities. He is a past participant of the International Initiative for Children, Youth and Families, where he was invited to visit and give presentations in the Netherlands and Israel about Caring Communities. During those visits, he met with policy makers, field experts and researchers representing fifteen countries about developing policy aimed at strengthening families and neighborhoods.