For more than 40 years, Khatib A.F. Waheed has worked in a variety of settings and capacities to address the issues of racial inequality, poverty, and discrimination. Schools, churches and mosques, grassroots community-based organizations and mental health agencies are some of the familiar settings where Khatib has worked over four (4) decades to raise awareness and generate action aimed at ending racial discrimination and racial hatred.

 

In 2011, Khatib began conducting Racial Equity Learning Exchange Sessions℠ as a national presenter, facilitator, and consultant. He has provided these services to support a variety of stakeholders who are working to improve services and outcomes for children and families of color. Judicial circuits, law enforcement agencies, mental health providers, private companies, child welfare and juvenile justice agencies, and school districts have participated in several RELE Sessions conducted by Khatib.   

 

Prior to his national work as a Presenter/Facilitator of RELE, Waheed served for eight years as a Senior Fellow for the Center for the Study of Social Policy in Washington, DC from 2003 to 2011. When Khatib is not doing RELE Sessions, he is working daily to achieve racial equity through some specific systemic reform and community building efforts. 

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More recently, Khatib works with the St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s office to engage citizens in a criminal justice reform effort aimed at: restoring accountability and public trust; advancing forward thinking harm reduction initiatives; and achieving racially equitable criminal justice outcomes. Whenever Khatib is not conducting Racial Equity Learning Exchange Sessions ℠ (RELE) or working for the St. Louis City Prosecutor, he continues to focus on ways to achieve racial equity through systemic reform and specific community building efforts.

 

From 2001-2003, 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.

 

 

He also served as Senior Associate for the Aspen Institute Roundtable on Comprehensive Initiatives from 1999 to 2001. While working at Aspen Khatib helped to develop “frameworks” for analyzing how structural and institutional racism and implicit bias perpetuate long term disadvantages for African American children, families, and communities.

He has also served as Special Assistant to the Director of the Missouri Department of Social Services where he helped to reduce a coalition to help reduce youth violence, drug trafficking and teen pregnancy in the City of St. Louis.

Khatib is chiefly known as the co-architect and founder of Walbridge Caring Communities Program that expanded and evolved into the St. Louis Caring Communities Programs. The Walbridge Caring Communities Program (WCCP) was a public-private partnership created in 1989 supported with funding from the Danforth Foundation and Missouri Departments of Mental Health, Social Services, Education and Health. The WCCP model evolved into a $6.5 million multiservice program serving children, families, and communities across twenty program sites in St. Louis city. The program was replicated in over 100 Caring Communities Program sites throughout the state of Missouri.

Khatib holds a M. Ed from the University of Missouri-St. Louis and a B.A. in History and Political Science from Webster University. Over a 40-year span, he has received innumerable awards, recognition, and accolades for his service to children and families and for his work in community empowerment, social justice, and racial equity.