About Us

about US

We are a charitable and an educational 501c3 organization, who provides socio-emotional skills training to youth, men and couples, and helps them build character and develop the necessary skills to effectively communicate when also dealing with anger.

Vision

To increase role models in black and brown communities who create new (and support pre-existing) models of peaceful living and "love as equals."

"I was embarrassed about trying to get help and, there weren’t many programs out there for brothers like me. "

Andrew L. Gardner III

Our Mission

Our mission is to provide an environment that educates and challenges youth, men, and couples to achieve their fullest potential. Brothers Like Me students will become confident lifelong learners and change agents in the fight to achieve anger management, conflict de-escalation, and elimination of domestic violence. We will teach critical-thinking skills, various communication techniques, and different exercises that will especially help men to function as productive citizens in their communities.

Anger Management Program

Seeding Confidence to Grow a Better Life
Brothers Like Me emphasizes that you are not in this alone. We want to help you to learn that you can deal with and respond to your anger in a healthy way. We want to teach you to become more self-aware and to understand that you might not be able to control every situation, but you can always control how you respond to it. You can transform every negative thought you have into a positive action plan. You can consider wants, outcomes, obstacles and plans for showing resilience over being reactionary.

Understanding the difference between the Primitive and the Evolved Brain
Whenever you’re dealing with conflict the Primitive Brain is where don’t want to be because the Primitive Brain is reactionary. The Evolved Brain is where you want to be when faced with conflict. Our goal is teach you strategies to keep you out your primitive brain by breathing techniques and asking yourself the million dollar question, what do I need to be okay in this moment? It’s a question that only you can answer and your answer must relate to what can I do for myself, not what can the other person do for me in that moment.

Brothers Like Me use Drew's RBP: Practical Solutions for effective anger management

Recall - Stop and Remember the consequences as a result of your anger

Breathe - Breathing Practices are great for the body when dealing with anger. If you can take a moment and focus on your breathing, it will help calm you down.

Persevere - Relapse Strategies must be named and practiced, just like an athlete practices his or her sport. Relapse or repeating abusive behavior happens to the best of us. But just because you fall down doesn’t mean you can’t get back up.

Brothers Like Me will always be that hand that helps you up, not one that kicks you when you are down. We don’t call you out; instead, we call you into the circle to restore dignity.

Through our anger program you will learn all the necessary tools to fully equip you when you are in the face of conflict. You will learn to become more confident and to be able to trust yourself with all the tools you have been given for turning conflict into a healthy conversation.

Keys to Dealing with Anger

Admitting that you have an anger problem is the first step. You can’t solve a problem if you don’t admit that have you one. Once you admit that you have a problem with your anger, we can begin to teach what anger is, and the lasting effects it can have on your lifestyle, your health and others if you don’t get it under control.

There are three basic ways that people deal with anger.

Stuffing

Where you keep your anger inside until you explode or build resentment.

Escalating

Where you just let your anger out on anybody anywhere and you just don't care at the moment when you're angry.

Managing

Where you express your anger in a socially appropriate and healthy way. This involves self-reflection, forgiveness, taking responsibility, and change based on activating strengths not just in your character but in your de-escalation toolbox. This is our goal for you.

Our Domestic Violence Program

Examination- Examine your past while taking 100 % responsibility for the present. People who commit acts of domestic violence have themselves often suffered violence as a child or witnessed it between their parents. This causes learned behavior over the years that transfers into their adult years. While this may be true, and you were affected by domestic violence growing up, you must take responsibility for your life now.

Thought Process- Change the way you think to eliminate domestic abuse. The goal is teaching you how to manage your expectations by lining them up with the real world that we live in, not the perfect world that we tend to create in our mind. This lifelong-learner’s mindset emphasizes “social and emotional learning,” and relates to making concrete (1) wishes, (2) outcomes / goals, (3) possible obstacles, and (4) possible action steps (plans). We call that getting out of “The Should World,” and one thing about The Should World is that it is full of extremes. When you place “should-statements” on others (as in, “She should do this or that”), the emotional result is frustration, annoyance, or anger. Concrete examination of your Wishes, Outcomes, Obstacles and Plans lead to successful anger management, and you can say, “WOOP, there it is!”

History (emotional, social) – You must admit and accept that you committed an act of domestic violence, such as: shoving, verbal abuse, physical fighting, restraining, threatening, all against your partner. There are many possible reasons that someone might commit an act of domestic violence. Our goal is to help you figure out why you have done so at least once, a few times, or often. We are a no-judgement zone, but we are about truth and responsibility. Relationship accountability and trust start with self-accountability and social accountability. Also, though, you must recall your history of de-escalating behaviors and choosing alternatives to violent confrontation. Remembering what you have done right in the past helps you ask, “What keeps me in the moment from doing the constructive behavior again, and how can I trigger my resilience-memory instead of my reaction-in-anger-behavior?” In the end, you operate from strength without desire for domination, and that results in dignity and compassion for both parties, instead of hurt humiliation for both parties.

Conflict Resolution - Fair fighting/ conflict resolution. Fair fighting is one of the best tools that we can teach our clients. Because nobody in the world agrees on everything so conflict is destined. The goal with fair fighting tactics is help our clients to learn to say what’s on their minds while keeping their emotions in check, being able to control their tone of voice, choice of words, and actions. Again, in the end, you will operate from strength but without desire for domination, and that results in dignity and compassion for both parties, instead of hurt humiliation for both parties. Ending the conflict also brings integrity and pride in living within your best sense of personal and interpersonal ethics.

Forgiveness - How does one forgive himself and others? Our goal is to help you forgive yourself by helping you understand that when you forgive yourself about your own mistakes and wrong doings, it helps create the breakthrough that you have been looking for. It sets you free to move on to the next step. If you don’t learn how to forgive and practice forgiveness, you can end up imitating abusers from your own life, and simply not growing. In a sense you become a new person, but really, you build strengths and condition yourself to choose better alternatives. In time, this becomes your new character and new habits, plus you grow a willingness to self-correct and accept both discipline and responsibility. This does not give you permission to re-enact violence or make excuses for past, present or future bad behaviors. It does open the door, though, to getting back to self-work.

Emotional Intelligence - Emotional intelligence is defined here as the ability to recognize other people’s emotions (empathy) as well as one’s own; but also, it relates to the ability to combine one’s emotion with one’s thought to make good decisions. That is social-emotional learning. Our goal here is to educate you, your family, and your significant other, on the many aspects of emotional intelligence, which include: emotional self-awareness, using your emotions to make good decisions, managing your emotions by staying in control of them, and understanding subtle forms of emotions.