A new program aims to help Philadelphia’s Black fathers talk to their teens about mental health and racism.

Joel Austin spends his days talking to Black fathers about how to become the parents they aspire to be at Daddy University Inc., a Philadelphia-based nonprofit that he founded two decades ago. In recent years, Austin has noticed that Black fathers in his male-parenting education programs increasingly say they’re grappling with how to talk to their teens about mental health. They also want strategies for helping them cope with racism. “You have these dads who were raised ‘to hold it all in’ who are raising teens who are taught ‘to let it all out,’” Austin said. “How do we get them on the same level?” Austin, whose youngest child is 17, is now working to bridge that divide with the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s Center for Parent and Teen Communication (CPTC), which draws from academic research to help parents successfully raise teenagers. The partnership will draw from the experiences of Philadelphian Black fathers and teens, ages 12 to 17, to create educational and coping tools surrounding mental health problems and racial inequities. To launch the pilot project, Austin and Jillian Baker, CPTC’s executive director, received last month a two-year grant of up to $40,000 from CHOP PolicyLab, a center focused...