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Tribal Child Care Technical Assistance Center (TriTAC)
Effective Program Strategies

Public Hearing and Needs Assessment Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Reservation

Demographic Information:
The Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Reservation is located in Northeastern Minnesota, approximately 20 miles west of Duluth. The Fond du Lac Reservation, one of six Reservations inhabited by members of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, includes isolated rural sections of St. Louis and Carlton Counties. Residents live in three distinct communities, Cloquet, Sawyer, and Brookston, which are located on the reservation’s borders and have both reservation and non-reservation areas. The communities are each served by a tribal community center that provides recreation facilities and community services. Approximately 2,400 Indian children under the age of 12 live on or near the Reservation.

Effective Program Strategy:
Deb Eagle began working with the Fond du Lac Child Care Assistance Program in October of 2001. In 2003, she started the process of drafting her first Tribal CCDF Plan and reviewed information on how the public hearing process had worked in the past. She found that the program had previously conducted traditional public hearings, held during the day in a tribal government facility. In the previous Plan development period, not one parent, provider, or community resident had participated in the public hearing.

Ms. Eagle did not feel that this approach was in the best interest of the program. She wanted to get real feedback from parents and providers to help improve child care programs and practices, not just meet the regulatory requirement for holding a hearing. However, she knew that, in order to get useful input, she would need to develop an approach that was socially and culturally appropriate for her community. For example, she would have to address people’s fears about public sharing of personal and/or politically sensitive information. She also knew that the largest population of new parents were teens and young adults with limited education and that she would need to create a process that would not intimidate them or put them on the spot.

Once Ms. Eagle realized that there were political and social challenges to conducting a formal public hearing, she used creative problem solving and her understanding of the target audience to find a new avenue for getting community input. She began by adapting an existing child care needs assessment survey. First, she updated the standard questions about family size, work hours, current child care usage, and unmet need. Then, she added questions with direct relationship to the Tribal CCDF Plan, such as "Do you know that the Tribe and the County have child care assistance programs?" and "Are the parent co-payment fees at a reasonable rate for your income?"

Ms. Eagle then distributed these surveys from her booth at the Early Head Start program’s Community Baby Shower for new and expectant parents. The Baby Shower, an annual event with good community attendance, features a panel discussion, dinner, and booths for various county and tribal community agencies, including WIC, the Shriners, and public health nurses. Parents who completed the child care needs assessment survey were entered into a drawing to win one of five prizes suitable for new parents, such as a Diaper Genie^® or childproofing safety items. Ms. Eagle collected surveys and talked informally with parents about their child care needs, which gave people an opportunity to share their thoughts in a one-on-one setting and to keep their input confidential.

In order to get input from existing clients, Ms. Eagle sent the needs assessment survey out to parents with their semi-annual client satisfaction surveys and provider assessments. Ms. Eagle got additional input on the child care program and on the Tribal CCDF Plan by sharing the draft Plan with the Tribe’s EHS Director and other colleagues in the community. The Tribe’s monthly Provider Night events for family child care and foster care providers offered an opportunity for Ms. Eagle to discuss the Plan and other program issues with the providers.

Results:
While the public hearing conducted for the previous Plan submission had no participants, Ms. Eagle received completed surveys from 20 Community Baby Shower attendees. The response was so positive that Ms. Eagle plans to use the survey at other local events in order to get ongoing information about community needs.

In reviewing participant responses, it became clear that each question could yield different kinds of useful data. For example, the answers provided in response to a question about how people find out about available child care showed that many people didn’t know about available child care services and that people acquire needed information from a variety of sources. These responses helped Ms. Eagle identify a need for more consumer education in the community through the Fond Du Lac Child Care Assistance Program and through the State’s child care resource and referral agency (CCR&R). The responses also suggested a need for increased coordination with community partners to ensure that Tribal and county agencies and organizations can make appropriate referrals to the Fond Du Lac Child Care Assistance Program.

The most important result of this new public hearing process is that it improved both the quantity and the quality of input provided to the Child Care Assistance Program. This new information is enabling Ms. Eagle to make the program more accessible to the families who need it.

Lessons Learned:
The key lesson that Ms. Eagle learned from this process is that, if you are willing to think creatively, it is possible to meet grant requirements in a way that is culturally relevant. She feels that the most important question for administrators to ask themselves is, "How can I get what I need to get, given what I know about how my community operates?" She wants tribal child care grantees to know, "We can take a program and modify it to meet the needs of our community instead of trying to superimpose a set of practices or methods that we know won’t be effective."

For public hearings in particular, she suggests coordinating with an event that regularly gets a good turnout in your community. It is also helpful to partner with an agency that has a longer history of successfully serving your target population. By holding her hearing in conjunction with a Head Start event, Ms. Eagle was able to benefit from Head Start’s reputation as a valued source of community information.

If there are no existing public events in your community that attract your target audience, you may increase your own turnout by offering free incentives such as food, children’s activities, and prizes. If you want parents and providers to be able to participate in a group setting, you may also want to provide child care during your event.

Ms. Eagle also found that, if local political issues make parents feel uncomfortable providing input, it may be helpful to have your public hearing process coordinated by someone who is not from the community originally and therefore may be seen as a neutral party.

Contact Information:
Deb Eagle
Child Care Licensing Worker

Address:
Fond du Lac Reservation
927 Trettel Lane
Cloquet, MN 55720

Phone: (218) 878-2138
Fax: (218) 878-2189
Email: DebEagle@fdlrez.com

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This page was last updated June 5, 2004.