Bi-Monthly Newsletter - February 2021

Nebraska Early Childhood Strategic Plan Goal 3:

Collaboration—Communities coordinate a locally

designed mixed-delivery system that provides

continuous care and meets the needs of families.

This month's newsletter continues to focus on Nebraska's Early Childhood Strategic Plan by

examining Goal 3 and the organizations who align well with it.

Goal 3 focuses on supporting local community leaders, early childhood providers, and school

personnel to build relationships and their capacity to coordinate local resources for families and

their children.

The strategic plan calls for developing a statewide infrastructure to help support coalition

building within and across Nebraska’s communities. Utilizing Nebraska’s existing models of

collaboration and coordination, organizations in the statewide early childhood system will work

together to define how each can best support greater capacity in local systems and provide

resources for communities to design and implement their own early childhood coordination

plans. As each community, or group of communities in a region, creates more coordinated and

integrated early childhood care and education systems, they will do so by building on the

strengths and resources that are locally available to meet families’ needs. When community

leaders identify gaps in their local system, they may turn to other communities or to state-level

organizations to seek information or resources to begin to fill those gaps. Ultimately, the more

coordination and alignment at the state and community levels, the easier it will be for families

to access the services they need for their child’s healthy development.

Preschool Development Grant

Renewal Application--Year 2

The team at the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) is working with the PDG

Project Management Team on finalizing the Continuation Application for Year 2 of the three-

year Preschool Development Grant (PDG). This was made possible thanks to the ongoing

successful efforts funded by the PDG Renewal Grant. This application is an opportunity to

showcase the accomplishments of the 24 PDG projects over the past year and highlight the

upcoming activities for Year 2.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many of the projects in PDG were slightly delayed in their

hiring processes as well as in implementation. However, the expertise of the PDG project leads

and the ongoing collaboration with the Nebraska Leadership Team, partners, and stakeholders

allowed for steadfast movement forward.

Many of the PDG projects leaders responded and creatively adapted to meet the needs of the

children, families, and providers they served through virtual assessments, trainings, and

guidance. DHHS is looking forward to continued advancements in meeting the goals of the

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Preschool Development Grant. Please continue to follow the PDG Newsletter for updates on

progress and achievements.

Strategic Plan Update

The Nebraska Early Childhood Strategic Plan is designed to create a more integrated system of

early childhood services for children and their families so that families can access quality early

care and education as well as other essential services to help their young children thrive.

Success in building an integrated early care and education system that provides quality care to

each child depends on coordination of community-level and statewide resources, requiring

strong relationships and effective communication among stakeholders representing all sectors

of the system.

One of the values that guides the strategic planning process is “Community Leadership and

Collaboration.” Each community across Nebraska has a unique set of characteristics, strengths,

and challenges. Community members and leaders are the experts in what is happening in and

what will work for their people.

As stakeholder engagement continues in 2021, the team looks forward to talking with

community leaders, including families and early childhood educators, to identify strategies and

action plans that support the needs of children and families. Through these conversations,

Nebraska communities will ensure that their priorities for improving access to quality early

childhood services are reflected in the strategic plan.

In the end, creating an effective early childhood system is a shared responsibility. Everyone

(parents, early childhood professionals, schools, businesses, community leaders, state agencies,

nonprofit organizations, and elected officials) has a vested interest in supporting the healthy

development and learning of each child. Working together, a comprehensive strategic plan will

be created that represents the diverse voices in communities across the state and provides

Nebraska with shared goals and priorities for action.

See the Nebraska Early Childhood Strategic Plan and other supporting materials.

For questions about the Strategic Plan contact Susan Sarver.

Needs Assessment

Update

The Needs Assessment team is working to

capture additional data about the needs and

concerns of Nebraska's most

underrepresented and underserved families.

Currently, the groundwork is being laid to

train facilitators to conduct a series of family

focus groups. Partners have identified from

community organizations to support

identifying, recruiting, and facilitating focus

groups with vulnerable families across

Nebraska. Although delayed due to the

COVID-19 pandemic, the team is elated to be

working with our community partners on this

collaborative approach and coordinated effort

to better understand families' perspectives

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and improve access to high-quality early

education and service for all Nebraska's

children, birth to age five.

If you are interested in this opportunity or

would like to refer someone else that you

believe may be interested, please contact

Kimberly Norman-Collins.

The Strategic Plan at Work

Parents in the Process

The Buffett Early Childhood Institute at the University of Nebraska has the privilege of

facilitating six PDG activities, including Activity 3e, the “Parent Education Campaign.” Principal

investigators are Erin Owen and Renee Wessels, and the campaign has been conceptualized as a

broad collaborative effort of the Buffett Institute and ECCE stakeholders across the state.

This activity is one of six projects within Activity 3, which has as its overall charge to maximize

parental knowledge to inform choices that support each child's healthy development. One focus

of PDG is to ensure families are provided information about the quality and variety of early

childhood education programs.

The Parent Education Campaign will draw from and be informed by the PDG Needs

Assessment, the Nebraska Early Childhood Strategic Plan, and other communications research

and findings. The goal for the Campaign is to build support for quality early childhood care and

education.

While parents are a principal focus of the Campaign, efforts will also reach those within the

early care and education system, including providers and other members of the early childhood

workforce, as well as community and opinion leaders, elected officials, and others whose

support is essential to supporting and sustaining the investments needed for a quality early care

and education system. An evaluation plan will assess the Campaign’s progress and

effectiveness.

Year 1 milestones to date include assembling planning teams with partners, including Nebraska

Children and Families Foundation, the Nebraska Early Childhood Communications

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Roundtable, and the Buffett Institute PDG Steering Committee; producing a strategy brief;

developing an annual work plan; hiring staff; presenting progress updates to stakeholders;

launching communications research; undertaking the development of a logic model; and

projecting the Year 2 scope of work. A draft Campaign outline will be produced by April 30.

For more information about the Parent Education Campaign, contact Erin Owen or Renee

Wessels.

Communities Align through C4K+

Nebraska Children and Families Foundation’s Communities for Kids Plus (C4K+) project began

contracts in October 2020 to give 27 communities funding to hire local Early Childhood

Community Coordinators (ECCC’s), with some communities splitting up their funding to hire

multiple people. There are now less than a quarter of the 33 coordinator slots left to fill,

showing us that communities have pushed hard to prioritize a dedicated staff person who can

coordinate the many elements of making a deep impact on their early childhood landscapes.

The coordinators will also be managing the other pieces of the C4K+ funds will be headed out to

communities soon for: Early Learning Scholarships, which will help bridge the gap for

vulnerable families who do not qualify for subsidy but cannot afford quality care; and Quality

and Capacity Building funding, which will significantly boost local efforts toward quality

enhancement and needed capacity increases. Community coordinators will also work to invite

leaders across their communities to the table, showing them the importance of early childhood

efforts and why they should be involved.

Twice a month, the coordinators are gathering to learn from one another (demonstrating not

just local but statewide collaboration), contribute to evaluation efforts, and receive technical

assistance as they get started in their roles. C4K+ has also partnered with Mission Matters to

lead half of these coordinator gatherings on learning leadership and collaboration pieces;

Mission Matters has brought a great sense of interactivity and excitement even though the

pandemic has halted any in-person meetings. The Nebraska Children team has found this to be

such an exciting journey and continues to pour all efforts into alignment with the Strategic Plan

to make Nebraska the best place in the country to be a child.

For more information about C4K+, contact Marti Beard.

NAESP Brings Schools and

Providers Together through

Leadership Academy

The Nebraska Department of Education (NDE), Office

of Early Childhood has been excited to partner with

the National Association for Elementary School

Principals (NAESP) to bring Nebraska’s NAESP Pre-

K-3 Leadership Academy to elementary principals,

early childhood instructional leaders, and community

childcare and Head Start directors across the state

through the support of the PDG Renewal Grant.

While the initial plan had been to begin the 2nd

cohort of Nebraska’s NAESP Pre-K-3 Leadership

Academy during the first year of the PDG renewal

grant, the pandemic has allowed additional time for

advertising and marketing of the upcoming cohort, as

well as for revision of the course content for the

Leadership Academy. One of the primary revisions to

community and encourage them to

participate in the academy together in

order to strengthen transitions across

settings at the local level.

The NDE, Office of Early Childhood is

looking forward to the second cohort

and the impact on continuity between

early childhood settings that the

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the course content is informed by the NAESP

publication, “Leading Learning Communities: A

Principal’s Guide to Early Learning and the Early

Grades.” This publication will be released later this

year. Furthermore, additional work has been done to

make the course content more up-to-date and include

relevant information to support early childhood

leaders, regardless of their title or location.

In the initial cohort, only elementary school principals

participated. The upcoming cohort will be expanded

to include and prioritize principals, community

childcare, and Head Start directors from the same

Leadership Academy will have for its

participants.

For more information about the

NAESP Leadership Academy, contact

Melody Hobson or Kristine Luebbe.

Transition Committee Strengthens Provider and

Public School Collaborations

The statewide Needs Assessment of early childhood care and education recently revealed that

two of the most common transition practices in the state include visiting a kindergarten

classroom and attending a spring kindergarten orientation. Based on such crucial data drawn

from the assessment, the newly formed Transition Committee aims to document sources of

important data in order to provide insight into transition experiences for children, families, and

educators, one of several aims set forth in this project supported by PDG funds. Furthermore,

building community capacity to support continuity across early education contexts, especially

as children enter Kindergarten, is a Committee objective aligned with the state Nebraska Early

Childhood Strategic Plan.

The Committee begins convening in March and April and will hold quarterly meetings over the

next two years. Members are drawn from those with expertise in early education transitional

processes. Members embody a cross-section of Nebraska leaders, including elementary

educators, providers, Early Childhood Specialists, Early Learning Coordinators, University of

Nebraska-Lincoln Extension Educators, Head Start, and higher education, and who represent

Chadron, Omaha, McCook, Kearney, Norfolk, Wakefield, Lincoln, Sidney, Ogallala, and

Concord in forming this truly statewide committee.

The Transitions Committee is a PDG project intended to increase parent and provider

understanding of transition processes, strengthen collaboration among ECCE providers and

public schools, build knowledge among professionals in ECCE and schools, and align standards

and curricula. Our work began by identifying exemplary state and national transition resources

for a resource library from which an online repository is being created. Books and materials will

be available statewide later this year through the Nebraska Department of Education, Early

Childhood Training Center Media Center.

Year two of the grant will focus on development of transition toolkits for Nebraska families,

community providers, and schools. Statewide implementation of the toolkits is the primary

objective of the third and final year of the grant cycle.

For more information on the Transitions Committee, please contact Amanda Garrett.

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Beautiful Moments in Collaboration

You might say it started with a beautiful moment. Steph Renn, Vice President of Early

Childhood/Sixpence Administrator at Nebraska Children and Families Foundation and Dr. Lisa

Knoche, Research Associate Professor and principal investigator of the Getting Ready Preschool

Development Grant at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Center for Research on Children,

Youth, Families, and Schools shared core principles of quality home-visitation practices in a

breakout room at October’s Nebraska Leadership Team meeting.

The two had known of each other for some time, and Renn recalled,

when she had been a home visitor, admiring Knoche’s work. She said

that she had wished at the time she had gone through Getting Ready’s

training program. The training Getting Ready offers to home visitors,

according to Knoche, is a bidirectional process that recognizes that

"the parent is the expert on their child." The program gives parents an

active voice in the process of providers and families collaboratively

building toward developmental milestones.

Part of Getting Ready’s process echoed in Renn’s and Sixpence’s own philosophies. Home

visitors are trained to recognize and reinforce parental competencies by reflecting them back to

parents so as to build confidence. Renn tells the story of her early training under Kansas City

mental health professional Alice Eberhart-Wright, who called such moments of reflection,

"Beautiful Moments." Renn remembered working with a young mother who was engaging in

parallel talk with her child, and Renn captured it on her phone. The young woman later said she

understood "parallel talk" but didn’t know how to do it. The moment when Renn showed her

the video of the mother actually engaging in the process was transformative.

Subsequently, Renn says she began to ask as a home visitor and

continues to ask in her professional life to this day, "where are the

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beautiful moments here" that define a quality home visit, and in the

discussion between Knoche and Renn they discovered overlaps in their

visions of quality. That’s where the collaboration started—with a sense

of connection and an attempt to find points of overlap between the two

organizations.

Read full article.

Do You Have Questions?

If you have questions about newsletter content, PDG-related activities, or partner organizations,

we want to help you find answers. To receive information regarding your questions, please

submit an online query by filling out the form at the bottom of our "PDG Progress" page, and

we'll do our best to find you answers.

Get Answers to Your Questions

PDG Partners

Nebraska’s PDG work is led by Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services (NDHHS) under

the authority of Governor Pete Ricketts, in partnership with the Nebraska Department of Education

(NDE), Nebraska Children and Families Foundation, the University of Nebraska system, and many

other partners.

This project is made possible by funding received through Grant Number 90TP0079-01, of the

USDHHS-Administration for Children and Families, Office of Early Childhood; Nebraska Department

of Health and Human Services; Nebraska Department of Education; and Nebraska Children and

Families Foundation, following grant requirements of 70% federal funding with 30% match from state

and private resources. Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily

represent the official views of the Office of Child Care, the Administration for Children and Families, or

the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

For questions or comments regarding the Preschool Development Grant, please contact:

Shannon Mitchell-Boekstal, Assistant Vice President Preschool Development

For more information visit Preschool Development Grant.

Our Contact Information

Nebraska Children & Families Foundation

215 Centennial Mall South

Suite 200

Lincoln, NE 68508

402-476-9401

http://www.NebraskaChildren.org

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