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Effective Program Strategies
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| Innovative Approaches to Providing School-Age Care Osage Nation |
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Demographic Information:
The Osage Nation Reservation consists of nearly 1.5 million acres of land in northeastern Oklahoma and is otherwise known as Osage County. Osage Nation’s administrative offices are based in Pawhuska, Oklahoma, which has a population of 3,629. The principal reservation communities of the Osage Nation are Hominy, Fairfax, Pawhuska, and Skiatook. The Tribe owns all mineral rights located within Osage County and has an income from all oil and gas found there. Tourism and gaming are some of the other sources of tribal income.
Because the reservation is rural and quite large (its 2,296 square miles make it larger than the State of Rhode Island), transportation poses an ongoing challenge. There is no public transportation in Osage County and many families do not have vehicles, so getting from town to town can be difficult. Walking is a common way to get around within the towns themselves, which are small.
Approximately 45,000 people live in the county. The Osage Nation consists of approximately 18,000 Osage citizens with an estimated 4,000 residing on the reservation. Roughly 6,500 additional Native Americans from other Tribes live on the Osage Reservation.
Type of Program:
The Osage Nation Child Care Program (CCP) is open to all income-eligible Native American families in Osage County who are working, going to school, or searching for a job. The CCP operates a certificate program with a full range of child care options, including state-licensed centers, state-licensed family child care homes, family child care providers, and in-home providers. Sixty-four families and 120 children are served through the tribal child care program.
The Osage Nation operates four child care centers and contracts with several other centers to provide services to its children. The Tribe also operates a Head Start program and one of its centers provides Early Head Start services.
The Osage Nation operates an after-school program that is open to all children regardless of whether or not they are Native American. Total enrollment in the after-school program is 422 children, with an average daily enrollment of 80 children.
Effective Program Strategy:
The Osage Nation’s after-school program embodies a creative and comprehensive approach to meeting the wide-ranging needs of school-age children in a county without any existing organized youth-oriented activities or facilities (such as a community center, bowling alley, or movie theater).
The after-school program, housed in what is known as the Youth Enhancement Facility, opened in March 2004 after several years of discussions and planning around after-school programming and nearly two years of work to secure funding. A meeting with representatives from the Boys and Girls Clubs of America helped CCP staff to think more creatively about ways to serve school-age children. During the planning phase, the Tribe focused much attention on assessing children’s needs, especially children age 12 and up.
The Pawhuska-based after-school program offers an extensive array of activities and services in a state-of-the-art two-building facility. The Education Building includes a music room with instruction on various instruments such as guitar, piano, and mandolin; an arts and crafts studio; a computer lab; and space for after-school tutoring and mentoring services. The focal point of the Activities Building is a new gymnasium with full-size basketball courts. In this building, children can participate in such sports activities as volleyball, basketball, football, gymnastics, tumbling, ping pong, karate, kickboxing, and boxing. There is also a remarkable floor-to-ceiling rock climbing wall. During the school year, the Education Building is open Monday through Friday 3pm – 6pm, and the Activities Building is open Monday through Thursday 6pm –9pm, Friday 6pm–10pm, and Saturday 1–10pm. The facility is closed on Sundays. During the summer, the hours are 4-10pm daily.
Of the more than 400 children enrolled in the after-school program, most are ages 5-12, but many teenagers also use the facility. The gymnasium is especially popular with older teenage boys, who play basketball there.
One unique and popular aspect of the program is its community service component. In exchange for one hour per month of community service from each participating child, families are relieved of the requirement to pay an annual $10 per child program fee. Community service projects include cleaning, mowing grass, planting flowers, and tending vegetable gardens. Parents appreciate the savings, the community benefits from the assistance, and children learn valuable skills.
In October 2004, a Boys and Girls Club will open at the Youth Enhancement Facility. CCDF funding in the amount of $50,000 will be directed toward the Club to help sustain the after-school program. The Boys and Girls Club will provide programs that focus on character and leadership development, education and career enhancement, health and life skills, the arts, and sports and recreation.
Resources:
The Osage Nation blended together several different funding streams to build and support the Youth Enhancement Facility: an Oklahoma juvenile justice grant; a state health and fitness grant; a state childhood obesity prevention grant; and a NAHASDA (Native American Housing Assistance and Self Determination Act) grant. CCDF funds will support the operations of the Boys and Girls Club beginning in fall 2004.
Results:
The after-school program has had many impacts throughout the Osage community. Parents are pleased because their children now have a place to go in the afternoon after school and during the summer. Children are much more active now that they have a gym to go to and many are eating more healthily. Some overweight children have become more athletic and have lost weight.
The program has also helped many children complete their homework in the afternoon hours. While there is not yet any documentation of an impact on academic achievement, program administrators hope to monitor students’ grades in the future to see if the after-school program’s efforts are increasing rates of success in school.
Another helpful aspect of the program is that it is encouraging positive relationships between young children and older teenagers. This is occurring naturally as the facility employs high school students for three hours a day to help youngsters with homework and activities.
Tara Hendren, Assistant Director of the Child Care Program, says there is hope that the program will have an impact on the community’s high teen pregnancy and drug abuse rates. The Osage Nation is in the process of working with nursing interns from the Oral Roberts University Nursing Program and the Pawhuska School System to develop and implement an evaluation of program efforts.
Lessons Learned:
In planning its after-school facility, the Osage Nation learned several lessons that might be applicable to others setting up after-school programs under similar circumstances:
Contact Information:
Tara Hendren
Assistant Director
Address:
Osage Nation Child Care Program
1301 Grandview Avenue
Pawhuska, OK 74056
Phone: 918-287-5305
Fax: 918- 287-1050
E-mail: thendren@osagetribe.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 TriTAC@namsinc.org |
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