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Tribal Child Care Technical Assistance Center (TriTAC)
Effective Program Strategies
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| Child Care/Boys and Girls Club Prairie Band Potawatomi |
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Demographic Information:
Located in the rolling hills of rural northeast Kansas, the Prairie Band Potawatomi reservation sits 20 miles north of Topeka. The 121 square mile reservation is home to approximately 900 Tribal members; there are roughly 4,000 additional members living elsewhere in the country. The Tribe’s casino is the largest employer in Jackson County and is attracting many new residents to the reservation and the nearby towns of Mayetta, Hoyt, Delia, and Holton.
Type of Program:
In 2001, the Tribe expanded and renovated its child care center to house Child Care, Head Start, Early Head Start, and Early Intervention services. The state-of-the-art center, which has received national accreditation from the National Association for the Education of Young Children, serves both tribal members and tribal employees. The center serves approximately 98 children who reside on or near the reservation; 32 are in Head Start, 12 are in Early Head Start, and 54 are in child care. Fifteen of these children receive full-day, year-round services through a collaboration between Head Start and Child Care programs.
The Boys and Girls Club of the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation offers activities to develop, maintain, and improve the spiritual, physical, mental, and emotional well-being of children and youth by utilizing Native American traditions, recreation/sports, education programs, parent and community involvement, and involvement in nationally-sponsored organizations.
Effective Program Strategy:
For more than three years, the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation’s early care and education program has been partnering with the Tribe’s Boys and Girls Club to promote health and wellness among the Nation’s youngest members. This partnership began with a simple "a-ha!" moment for Cecily Wabaunsee, the Director of Early Childhood Programs. She saw the Boys and Girls Club building, roughly 100 feet away from her child care facility, sitting empty during the day and thought, "hey, we could use that!" So she arranged for the children in her program to have access to the building’s gym between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m., free of charge. The child care program uses the gym space to allow children of all ages the opportunity for gross motor activities when it is too cold or too hot for them to play outside comfortably.
Now that the Boys and Girls Club is under renovation and the new space will include a swimming pool, the Memorandum of Agreement that had been developed for the sharing of physical space has expanded to accommodate this new feature. Several child care staff will participate, along with Boys and Girls Club staff, in CPR, First Aid, and lifeguard training provided by the American Red Cross and YWCA. This will allow certified early childhood center staff and Boys and Girls Club staff to monitor the pool area jointly when the children from the child care center are in pool. The early childhood program will now also have access to the showers and locker rooms, in addition to the gym and pool area. Although the Boys and Girls Club will have pool equipment available for use by the community, the child care program will provide its own equipment so that sufficient resources are available to the community.
While the use of the physical fitness facilities is at the heart of the early childhood program’s partnership with the Boys and Girls Club, the two entities are engaged in numerous other collaborative efforts to provide educational and cultural opportunities to children of all ages. For example:
Several additional collaborative projects are currently in development. These efforts include a project for teen parents that will be supported by the early childhood center’s Early Head Start program, the Boys and Girls Club, and the public school district; a new library at the Boys and Girls Club; and a new collaboration with the Nation’s senior center to provide volunteer storytellers/readers.
Resources:
Existing facilities and equipment are used to support these collaborative efforts. Most supplies and training sessions that are needed are being funded with tribal funds.
Results:
By giving children opportunities for gross motor development and play, the early childhood center and the Boys and Girls Club are promoting a healthier community, helping to prevent health problems in children, and helping to lower children’s risks of engaging in negative or risky behaviors (including drug and alcohol abuse). This is significant for the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation because of the high number of people in the community with diabetes and obesity-related health problems.
Lessons Learned:
Ms. Wabaunsee feels that she should have been more assertive in her initial discussions with the previous Boys and Girls Club Director. Because their communications styles were very different, Ms. Wabaunsee was hesitant to approach him at first. This delayed the development and implementation of the partnership.
Ms. Wabaunsee also feels that it is important to be open-minded as you approach partnership discussions. During the discussions, you need to talk openly about what each partner wants and then find common goals that you can work together to achieve.
Patience is a valuable trait to have when you are developing a collaborative arrangement. As Ms. Wabaunsee says, "Everything doesn’t work as fast as we want, but we have to keep working toward the goals." Even when discussions are stressful or resources are low, she says, you can’t "drop the baton; you have to keep going."
Contact Information:
Cecily Wabaunsee
Director, Early Childhood Programs
Address:
Prairie Band of Potawatomi Indians
15380 K Road
Mayetta, KS 66509
Phone: (785) 966-2527
Fax: (785) 966-2514
Email: cecilyw@pbpnation.org
And
Yvette Washington
Director, B&GC
Address:
15390 K Road
Mayetta, KS 66509
Phone: (785) 966-3031
Fax: (785) 966-3018
E-mail: yvettew@pbpnation.org
| NOTE: If you have information about an Effective Program Strategy in your Tribal community that you would like to share, please contact the Tribal Child Care Technical Assistance Center (TriTAC) at TriTAC2@aol.com |
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