Vanity Jones, LMSW, is a Western New York Prosperity & Schomburg Fellow. Vanity is currently the president of the University at Buffalo Association for Black Social Workers (UBABSW). She plans events, collaborates, and facilitates conversations that uplift the students of African descent at the university. Vanity has contributed to and worked within the community. She has run a healthy relationships group for middle school children, counseled victims of domestic violence, co-facilitated multiple workshops for teens, co-planned and facilitated a simulation at a Teen Dating Violence Summit, and conducted internal research for Black women receiving services at a local domestic violence shelter.
Vanity’s research interests include but are not limited to influence on intimate relationships in the Black community, intimate partner violence and healthy relationships, intimate relationships post-IPV, and teen dating violence. Vanity is the co-founder of Building Black Relationships by Initiating Development, Growth, and Empowerment (BBRIDGE), a podcast that provides a platform to integrate evidence-based research, community, and public conversation about domestic violence and healthy relationships in the Black community. Vanity loves the work she does & believes that Black healthy relationships are the key to building a sustainable community.