Walk with Me: Rooted in Relationships Work in North Omaha

Willie Bob Johnson likes to walk his community in North Omaha and visit the early childcare professionals he works with. By doing this, he learns things. His visits have showed him, for example, the gardens that so many of the providers grow, gardens that are shared with community members. It is this sense of coming together, of sharing and trust that is important to those who grow up in North Omaha.

That’s why it was crucial when Rooted in Relationships, as part of Nebraska Children and Families Foundation outreach, came to the community that they first establish a trust relationship, to, in essence, walk with the members of the community and follow their lead, ask them to share the needs of the community. Johnson, who is coordinator of Rooted work in North O., said there was initial skepticism of the program. One of his coaches, Temeshia Qualls, describes it as “the apprehensiveness of having outsiders come into our community.” In the historically Black area of the city, she says that distrust often follows when “you plop something in the community, everybody gets their high-fives and kudos, and then all the resources are gone and it looks like it never happened.”

As part of establishing trust, Rooted representative Stacy Scholten encouraged Johnson to lead the North Omaha effort because he was a part of the community.  As Thelma Sims, another coach hired by Johnson, put it, “the trust started at the beginning because of that individual (Johnson) within our community who was given this opportunity to bring Rooted to us.” Johnson then worked within the community to choose 4 programs (3 centers and 1 home-based) from a group of 35 to act as an introductory cohort. And the work came at a vital time, according to Debra Nared, owner of Pee Wee Palace Childcare Center. She said that after COVID lockdowns, children had not had the social involvement they did before and needed the social-emotional support Rooted and the Pyramid Model offer.

Johnson emphasizes and extends the idea of “building trust from within” to the larger community in which he works, “if anybody comes into our centers (childcare facilities), they need to look like us!” He goes on to say that Scholten, in beginning the program, “heard that, and she worked very hard to make sure that we had that continuity.” This is a sentiment that is echoed by the coaches who work with Rooted and the Pyramid Model in North Omaha.  Nared said that from the very first day, when Johnson, Scholten, and the hand-picked team of coaches met in a local coffee shop, “she really felt like Stacy was listening; she could hear what we wanted.”

The other thing coaches made clear was that ownership of the program by the community was critical to making Rooted’s work successful. Qualls said she appreciated that Rooted’s programs were “not intrusive. It requires work, but the work was already being done.” Qualls says of observational coaching using the Teaching Pyramid Infant Toddler Observation Scale (TPITOS–called “Tippy Toes”) that educators are provided comments in areas they could improve on and are provided available resources, but they pick and choose what to work with. Early childhood professionals thus take ownership of the program.

Nared is enthusiastic about the tools provided to her. She says that she values the experiential element of the work, where trusted community coaches model the work to other educators: “we are able to take that information back to our teachers. Sometimes, teachers can hear, read, or listen but until somebody models what that really looks like, they still don’t get it.”

Katherine Patton, Director of the Revolution of Love Academy and a Rooted coach, notes trust and ownership lead to even greater unity. She says one of the most important elements of the work has been the “strengthening of the relationships with the other coaches.” Qualls adds that a collaborative approach has lessened competition and allowed providers to work together. She explains that they can share information where a family might be better served by one provider over another because of things like operating hours or level of support provided. Sims calls it a “bridge between childcare providers in our particular neighborhood. It has given us a link to work with each other in a different capacity.”

Sims also highlights another important impact of the work, the opportunity for validating staff. She calls it, “growth that happens within your space . . . everything you do, everything we learn with this Pyramid Model is an affirmation of the field of early childhood development.” Scholten says of this affirmation that it communicates to early childhood professionals they’re in a career that forms “little brains who are going to go to school and learn. All the things educators are doing now are going to contribute to how well they do when they go to kindergarten.”

The tools Rooted has provided have validated early childhood professionals with families as well. Nared says she and others didn’t know about the Pyramid Model or other resources like “Tippy Toes,” but that these tools have provided “some meaning behind what we do that we’re able to pass on to parents.”

Parents seem to have responded very positively. Patton worked with the team to hold a family engagement night where families could enjoy dinner while sharing social-emotional challenges they faced and hearing about resources that were available. Not only was the parent involvement substantial, but families brought others with them to hear the presentation. Scholten said that the turnout was much bigger than anticipated, which affirmed the work that was being done in the local programs. She added, “the parents are seeing a difference. They want to bring people to understand the changes and the differences providers are making.”

Scholten is quick to point out the community-led effort of the work. She laughs as she says that most of the people she is working with in North Omaha have been doing the work longer than she has been alive. That recognition has been key to Rooted’s success in the community. As Nared puts it, “it wasn’t like those of us who’d been in the business for 40 years had to go and change everything. They made us feel comfortable; they gave us choices. We didn’t feel judged.” Maybe that’s why Qualls has heard from so many other providers who want to know what the Pyramid Model is and when the next training is available.

With trust and local ownership, has come a sincere interest in the work Rooted is doing and a desire to sustain that work within North Omaha. Qualls says that she has seen the pieces of the puzzle come together with Rooted work and feels something meaningful is being passed on to the families they work with. But Nared asks an important question: “we may have an opportunity to be a part of something bigger than us, but what happens afterward?”

With Rooted in Relationship celebrating 10 years of excellent work, this becomes the impetus for the years ahead within North Omaha. Qualls is spot on when she says, “in our community, it shouldn’t be a one-time thing. It shouldn’t be, ‘oh, you go through this and then it’s gone.’ Because that pull-out will only add to more apprehension in the future.” Rooted’s focus then will be, as the current North O. group comes to the end of its 3-year training, providing a sustainable vision that will allow for a new cohort and an amplification of the trust they have established in the community.

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