In 2015, when Boone County, Nebraska was considering plans to address their childcare shortage, Jay Wolf, and other Boone County Foundation Fund (BCFF) core team members, said, “We know we have a childcare shortage; we need solutions, but we’re not interested in building a center.”
Five years later, the team broke ground for Boone Beginnings, their early care center.
So, how did this happen? Read on.
It’s late in the afternoon. Naptime is over. A little boy is feeling angry because his friend took his favorite toy. His face reddens and twists. As he begins to whimper, his teacher takes him aside. He puffs and blows out an imaginary candle she’s holding. There are many other techniques that Stephanie Allen, the director of The Teaching Tree, her teachers, and Rooted coaches use for a thriving center! Read more.
There’s POWER in numbers, particularly when children are the ages of birth through 3. Today, we talked to the Kellers to hear all about how Sixpence Home Base and their home visitor have helped the family thrive during these important years and beyond!
Nebraska Children’s Rooted in Relationships team recently released their annual statewide evaluation and provided data to communities participating in the initiative. The report contained some positive outcomes. Find out more!
The first three years of a child’s life are rife with neural opportunity. Throughout this time, brain synapses grow and multiply to create a foundation that serves a child for life. One of the best preventative measures we can take is dedicating ourselves to the study and practices of infant and toddler mental health. Today, we’re going to walk you through its definition, initiatives, and resources.
Not even a pandemic could stop Camp Catch-Up! An annual event that reunites siblings who were separated by the foster care system, Camp Catch-Up Virtual Sibling Vibes was held this year on July 6 -10 via Zoom. All the children, youth, and counselors logged on – and then the games literally began! From Gaga ball to a talent show to storytelling, counselors and coordinators made sure that a good time was had by all. Read more.
Although life and the weather are ever-changing, quality childcare and education is a constant need. To do this, we need Early Childhood initiatives like Sixpence Child Care Partnerships (Sixpence CCP). Early care and education professionals have a short but crucial time to help young lives bloom. We and Sixpence CCP can help. Read more about Shannon Crosby, the director of Cherry Park Creative Corner, LL, and her Sixpence Child Care Partnership.
For a sapling to thrive and to grow into one of the majestic oaks we see today, first it must be rooted deeply within the ground. The same applies to children’s early years. Sixpence, one of our early childhood initiatives, focuses on setting infants and toddlers up for success during those first three years of their life.
Read our latest blog, which features an interview with Stephanie Allen, who tells us all about her takeaways from collaborating with Sixpence CCP.
We’re delighted to play a part in funding the Community and Family Partnership’s efforts, which speaks to our model of community well-being and larger statewide prevention initiative of which we are involved, Bring Up Nebraska. The new mental health outreach service, moreover, fits into our strategy of organizations working together to create the changes we wish to see. Read more.
Imagine having experienced the foster care system. Maybe you connected with a family. Maybe you didn’t, and now you’re alone. You’re ready to live your best life, but are so focused on surviving, you’ve yet to approach thriving.
The Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Labor, CYI, Central Plains Center for Services and The Sherwood Foundation have teamed up to create Granting Opportunities for Achievement and Lifelong Success (GOALS). This initiative supports young adults who are transitioning from extended foster care during and throughout the pandemic. Read more.
Today, we asked Stoney Straatmann, a licensed childcare provider and one of Sixpence Child Care Partnership Programs (Sixpence CCP) from Hastings, Nebraska to talk about her experiences and benefits of the partnership. Before we speak with Stoney, we’d like to explain how Sixpence and its Child Care Partnerships work together.
What do I do if a parent’s check bounces? How do I handle temper tantrums? How do I keep the children in my care safe and healthy during the pandemic? How do I create a budget? What are my main expenses? How do I self-care? Why won’t toddlers put their shoes on without throwing a fit? How do I know if I am the right person for this field? Who do I talk to when I’m confused, stressed, or wish to learn about other professional opportunities? The Dawson County Early Childhood Professional Learning Series has answers.
Picture a rainy, cloudy day. The sky is a pale gray. Torrents pelt down like ball peen hammers. Suddenly, a man twirling fire walks through the rain, then a clown parades through the puddles. A line of cars slowly forms to watch the performance. This is not a dreamscape; this is the positive change that we envision at Nebraska Children, of which we’re delighted to take part. Read more.
We recently spoke with Cassie and Taylor Boyle of Plattsmouth, Nebraska. Cassie and Taylor are the parents of four children. Cassie explained some of the key benefits, resources, and takeaways she and her family have experienced from participating in the Sixpence Home-Based program.
When childcare’s future looks cloudy, McCook’s Communities for Kids brainstorms and creates a silver lining by collecting families’ responses through an in-depth survey and creating a childcare incentives program! Read about how the team forged quality care incentives to improve the presence of their community’s childcare programs and providers.
Communities for Kids, one of Nebraska Children’s Early Childhood initiatives, has been hard at work. As one of our programs designed to support children during their early years and their caregivers, we believe that change begins at the community level – and it did in Columbus, Nebraska. Read more about Columbus’ three-phase approach to assisting their local childcare providers.
When Zeny and her husband moved from the small town of Hastings, Nebraska to Lincoln, she had to begin all over again. For anyone who has encountered not only a new chapter in life, but a new library, that transition can be scary, exciting, and abrupt. One CYI component that helped Zeny along her way was Opportunity Passport™, which is implemented in Lincoln by Community Action Partnership of Lancaster and Saunders County. Read more about Zeny’s accomplishments.
We are grateful to Lisa, a Sioux City, Nebraska early care specialist, for sharing her experience at Cubby Care Campus, an early childhood center that’s situated in a growing hotbed of COVID-19, or what Lisa calls The Villain Virus. From here on, Lisa will discuss her experience, in her own words.
To ensure our safety and well-being not only as a community, but also for our next generation, the NAIMH, has leveraged various recent sources to put together a series best practices for early care providers and educators so that we and our children can adjust to some major changes.
Early this week, the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) announced that $20M in federal dollars will go toward restoring our state’s childcare foundation in addition to other educational resources for children. Following passage of the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES) earlier in March, this funding became available with a $3.5B appropriation to the Child Care Development Fund (CCDF). Read more about how these funds will be approximately allocated.
We are excited to be part of some incredible community-based efforts, particularly Matt Talbot Kitchen & Outreach’s recent ones to provide housing for the homeless. Throughout these last few months, we can’t deny the pandemic’s gravity or community accomplishments to help families thrive. As the saying goes, if it…
Resources for Unconnected Youth: Connected Youth Initiative Grants Hope During an unsettling time, our communities and youth with foster care experience matter. Despite these challenges, positive changes are happening every day both here at Nebraska Children and Families Foundation and in the communities in which we work. We’ve seen…
Long before the pandemic, Connected Youth Initiative’s Project Everlast Omaha, its partners, and the community has offered programs to assist unconnected youth. The term “unconnected youth” refers to young people between the ages of 14-25 years of age who have experienced the foster care system, juvenile justice system and/or probation, homelessness, or human trafficking. Find out more about Project Everlast Omaha’s efforts to support unconnected youth!
COVID-19. A few months before it was a name that occasionally echoed throughout media outlets, a virus from far, far away, a distant worry that was initially, amid all of hustle and bustle of everyday life, easy to brush aside. …
Although many professions, from retail to bartending to hospitality, have felt COVID-19’s impact, there is one, essential part of our workforce whose efforts occasionally remain unsung: our early care and education providers.
We realize, who better then, to speak to the struggles and hopes childcare providers face than a provider herself? Today, Roxann Bihlmaier, the Director of Kinder Haus Child Center in Eustis, Nebraska, is that person. Although every childcare provider’s story is unique, their hardships, hopes, and fears are all very real. Let us allow Roxann to tell us her story.
The National Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families has informed Nebraska’s Department of Health and Human Services (NDHHS) of a three-year, PDG B-5 renewal grant. Nebraska will receive $8.9 million for each of the next three years with contributing partners pledging $2.7 million in matched funds. Read more in our latest blog.
Early care providers and educators realize that whereas they are performing an essential act, they are also assuming a highly empathetic one. Many early childhood programs and providers have worked with their families and children for years. Early care educators and providers not only make up an important part of our economy; they have also become an honorary member of their attendees’ families.
Meanwhile, questions abound: if they close will they ever reopen? What will their families, whom they have grown to care for as much as their children, do if they close their doors? How do they best serve their families, selves, and children? For Carly Garner, she deliberates these questions along with the uncertainty surrounding the pandemic.
Our early care providers are strategizing, struggling, and helping – even amid this potentially fatal illness. We are glad to hear and share their stories. It is undeniable that early care workers have been duly impacted by COVID-19. It is, however, equally undeniable that this demographic has proven itself to be hard-working, resilient, and resourceful.
As we spoke with Chantel Tonkinson, the director of Ladybug Crossing Early Learning Program in North Platte, Nebraska, our vision of a brighter future and eventual new beginning sharpened into focus. She is reopening Ladybug Crossing on May 11!
On Arbor Day weekend, April 24-26, youth and their communities across Nebraska participated in a statewide Tree-A-Thon to plant and celebrate trees.
BSB kicked off the Tree-A-Thon alongside Arbor Day Foundation, Natural Resource Districts, Audubon Nebraska, Nebraska Forest Service, and The University of Nebraska. As with any major initiative, this project constituted more than just tree-planting; BSB and its partners had a larger mission in mind.
When early care providers experienced a bread and milk shortage, how did Saffron Buettner (pictured above) and her fellow community members help? Find out.
Whether you’re contemplating, starting, improving, or sustaining a high quality afterschool or summer learning experience, the process takes work. Beyond School Bells has launched its new Toolkit to help. For those thinking about creating an Expanded Learning Opportunity (ELO), the toolkit provides planning guidelines and funding structures. To start a program, this resource contains hiring and leadership strategies. To improve an ELO, explore curricular ideas and career-readiness best practices. Finally, sustain your ELO with resources for partnerships, advocacy, and messaging.
Beyond School Bells was awarded a one-year grant to participate in the Million Girl Moonshot. This initiative intends to increase the number of underserved youth in high-quality afterschool and summer STEM programs. With this STEMNext grant, BSB will join ten other statewide afterschool networks to launch this decade-long national initiative.
Thanks to the Buffett Early Childhood Fund, we and Nebraska Early Childhood Collaborative created the Nebraska Child Care Provider Relief Fund. This fund provides Nebraska-based licensed childcare programs and providers with a one-time $1,000 award. These funds are designed to recognize the importance of childcare facilities during this crisis. To date, we’ve received a staggeringly high number of over 1,000 applications.
Despite COVID-19, many families need to work, and their children need quality care. Without childcare, there can be no essential workers. Without these essential early care workers, there can be no thriving community.
Julie Nash wholeheartedly recognizes this connection. She and her organization serve on a committee that works with children ages birth through 11 and their providers. Through the professional grapevine, Julie caught wind from Shonna Werth, Assistant Vice President of Early Childhood Programs, that a provider in St. Paul, Nebraska needed disinfectant. In fact, if this provider couldn’t find some sanitizer soon, she would have to close her doors.
Learn more about Julie’s hunt for disinfectant.
Schuyler, Nebraska, with the help of our First Lady and other generous organizations, provided a terrific example of a community that cultivates positive change through engagement. When families in the Platte/Colfax Counties who were pursuing distance-learning were left with no available technology, the Community and Family Partnership, one of Bring Up Nebraska’s community collaboratives, reached out to its partners for assistance.
Find out what happened next.
This spring, COVID-19 is a name and number with which you’re probably well-acquainted. You’re more than likely aware of many other numbers, too. From the number of infected individuals in your area to the number of businesses closed to the number of layoffs, we can recite these statistics by heart.
Here at Nebraska Children and Families Foundation, as an organization that seeks to grow the good life for all our children, we empathize with those who are witnessing, dealing, and adjusting to these uncertain times.
In addition to members of the service industry and retail being impacted, there is one occasionally overlooked, equally affected demographic whose voice we aim to capture: our early care providers.
Heather Schmidt of Broken Bow, Nebraska is the owner of Love & Learn Childcare. She is also a student, part-time Administrative Assistant at Mid-Plains Community College’s Broken Bow Campus, and one of many early care providers staring in the uncertain face of COVID-19.
Nebraska Children and Families Foundation was glad to speak with Heather and gather her experiences considering these unprecedented events. Our hearts go out to those who are affected by the coronavirus.
From creating interactive Facebook platforms for e-learning to navigating uncertain enrollment, early childhood providers’ COVID-19-related struggles and successes are very real, particularly those of Linda Horner. Read about Linda’s experience.
Families and children matter now more so than ever, particularly during these uncertain times. Governor Ricketts has issued an Emergency Declaration for COVID-19. This content is intended to be a continuously updated document in a rapidly changing environment. It contains policy changes, opportunities for communities, and general updates connected to response to COVID-19. Please, check back often.
We’ve taken the reins and are thrilled to have a new date set for Perfect Pour: A Craft Cocktail Competition and benefit for Nebraska Children and Families Foundation, hosted by Friends of Nebraska Children. We look forward to seeing you Friday, August, 21st. It will be a brighter day with a new tequila sunrise on the horizon. Mark your calendars for this Nebraska Children fundraiser; the theme is still country vibes with a tequila twist.
On Friday, March 13, Beyond School Bells, Nebraska’s afterschool and summer learning network announced its statewide challenge for youth and their communities across the state to collectively plant over 20,000 trees on Arbor Day weekend, April 24-26.
The coalition recognizes the extenuating circumstances due to the Coronavirus and will stay updated on the most current information regarding the virus and whether a postponement of the Arbor Day events will be necessary to a fall planting.
Due to the growing concerns surrounding the Coronavirus, we are going to postpone Perfect Pour for a future date.
According to Stephanie, Sixpence CCP has assisted her with everything from helping her obtain necessary items for a quality childcare facility to providing assistance even during weekends and outside regular workdays to ensuring a smooth progression through Step Up to Quality’s tiers! Read on for the full interview, in her own words.
There’s no better indicator of community well-being than a real-life partner’s story! Today, we asked Amanda Cusatis, a licensed childcare provider and one of Sixpence Child Care Partnership Programs, to talk about the initiative’s strengths and key takeaways. But first, we’d like to provide some context for Sixpence and its Child Care Partnerships.
Deion Bass, bartender at Howard & Fine, is one of our talented Perfect Pour finalists!
Tickets are on sale, and we can’t wait to see you! Purchase Perfect Pour Tickets by March 9 here: http://bit.ly/30uTCFO
Dominick Pruch, a bartender at Hotel Deco, is one of our talented Perfect Pour finalists!
Tickets are on sale, and we can’t wait to see you!
Purchase Perfect Pour Tickets by March 9 here: http://bit.ly/perfectpourNCFF
Phil Athy, bartender at Mercury, is one of our talented Perfect Pour finalists!
Tickets are on sale, and we can’t wait to see you! Purchase Perfect Pour Tickets by March 9 here: http://bit.ly/30uTCFO
What began as a chat at Thriving Children turned into a proposal for the Board of Education. The proposition requested that North Platte Public Schools would partner with Ladybug Crossing Early Learning Center to provide childcare.
Amanda Ackley, director of Kids of HIS Kingdom Childcare Center, a licensed childcare provider, and one of Sixpence Early Learning Fund’s Child Care Partners told us about the program’s benefits and key takeaways. But first, here’s a bit of background on Sixpence Early Learning Fund and its Childcare Partnerships.
Bright, capable Rosa entered the University of Nebraska-Lincoln with a long list of scholarships. A trauma survivor who suffers from mental health issues, Rosa’s first semester of college marked a particularly difficult time. What resources did this capable young woman have to support her?
Established in 2006, the Sixpence Early Learning Fund supports infants and toddlers to ensure that they’re developmentally ready for kindergarten. Sixpence administers three types of grants: Center-based care, family engagement home-based services, and a combination of family engagement and center-based care. Today, Rebecca and Troy Swindell share their Sixpence home visitation takeaways!
Sixpence Early Learning Fund, one of our Early Childhood initiatives, is dedicated to helping our state’s most vulnerable infants and toddlers during these precious early years. Today, a Broken Bow family shared their takeaways from going more than eight years strong with Sixpence home visits!
How long did it take Becky Ramm, a busy Nebraska childcare provider, to apply for the Stabilization Grant?
TEN MINUTES. Yes, the process was that easy. Read more tips as Becky walks you through this simple grant application for childcare providers who were impacted by the pandemic.
Self-Care, Childcare, Rooted in Relationships Helps Support Both! Now, there is a bingo game for adults and childcare providers. When one of the families wins, their childcare provider may give them a free day of care, $5, ice cream, or childcare in exchange…
Popular culture is full of tales of a young person who travels from her small town to a larger urban area. But what about those who stay or return? Beyond Dorothy of The Wizard of Oz, many young families move back to small towns, places that they love, where they may be presented with unique assets and challenges, including finding childcare. Read more about the Wilcox-Hildreth area’s new C4K initiative and their dreams of Cultivating Kids…and quality childcare.
Lately, the future of kids going back to school has been uncertain. Happily, when Beyond School Bells’ teamed up with Big Red Keno, a Think Make Create Lab rolled into Family Service Lincoln. The future was hopeful once again! Read more about how our next generation of young creators made the most of this mobile makerspace!
A young woman was temporarily homeless. How did she use her resilience, resources, and a little support from a Central Navigator and KAJ Hospitality to find a place she now calls home?
As our Assistant Vice President of Early Childhood Mental Health, we’re excited to host Sami Bradley as our resident expert, who will share her personal experience and professional tips to assist parents in their management of children’s emotions.
At 25 years old, Kloreace thought big and dreamed bigger. Six months after enrolling in Opportunity Passport™, she bought a house! A passionate school psychologist, she possesses many talents: she’s intelligent, driven, and compassionate. She’s also an advocate for the Opportunity Passport ™ program, which we oversee along with Community Action Partnership of Lancaster and Saunders Counties.
