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Effective Program Strategies
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| Child Care/Head Start 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.
Effective Program Strategy:
The Prairie Band Potawatomi early education center collaborates in many ways, with various community partners, to provide quality services for young children and their families. The Tribe’s Head Start and Child Care programs have partnered to provide quality full-day, year-round services since 1996. This initiative began with the dream of building an early childhood building, Ben-no-tteh Wigwam (House of the Child), to serve all early childhood programs. The dollars to construct this facility were provided through a grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and supplemental dollars were provided by the Tribe. Before the facility was completed in 1997, the Nation’s children were transported 30 minutes off the reservation to receive quality child care services. Now, nearly 100 young children are served within the Prairie Band’s own community.
One classroom is set aside for providing full-day, full-year services to the Tribe’s youngest members. Children receive child care and Head Start services in the same classroom for the entire day, with different Head Start and Child Care teachers and teacher aides scheduled throughout the day in order to provide services from 7 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Two teacher aide positions are paid with CCDF dollars and the Head Start grant is used to pay the salaries of four teachers and a partnership manager. After the Head Start year ends, parents complete a form indicating whether or not their child will need care over the summer months. Tribal supplemental funding allows Head Start teachers to continue providing services after the Head Start year has ended.
The Potawatomi Tribe’s Early Childhood Programs Division decided to manage their partnership through a cooperative approach. Each individual on the team is responsible for a certain aspect of management. The partnership management team meets monthly for planning and schedules their meetings so all members can attend.
In the near future, the Early Childhood Programs Division plans to undertake once again the building expansion process. With a newly expanded center, more full-day, year-round classrooms will provide a continuous flow of services to children and their families.
Resources:
CCDF, Head Start, HUD, and Tribal funds support the partnership.
Results:
The key outcome of the partnership is the provision of high quality full-day, year-round early care and education services to meet the needs of children and their families. The combined efforts to build an early learning center have also increased the Tribe’s capacity to provide care on the reservation.
Lessons Learned:
The early childhood program attributes their successful partnership to receiving support from the Tribal community; taking time to value all the players, parents, teachers, and staff; and involving all the players in program decision making. By working as a unit, not in isolation from each other, the early education team was able to overcome communication issues that surfaced at the beginning of the partnership. When staff focused on the end result, bringing together two programs to provide quality services to the community’s children, the fear of change gave way to an embracing of different opinions and a merging everyone’s goals and ideas. Throughout the partnership journey, program staff have remained focused on providing quality services to the Tribe’s youngest members and have spurred each other on by saying, "life is short; just do it!"
Contact Information:
Cecily Wabaunsee, Director of 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
| 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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