Strategic Planning and Building
TCU ECE Family Engagement
2020 – 2021
About The Program
The Strategic Planning and Building TCU ECE Family Engagement program involved a $200,000 grant that supported 7 TCUs with family engagement during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as supported the development of a strategic plan for the next 1, 4, and 7 years of the American Indian College Fund’s Indigenous Early Childhood Education (IECE) programming.
TCU grantees demonstrated that the funding supported families and children during the pandemic through several family engagement activities:
- Virtual story time facilitated by community elders
- Trapping and harvesting demonstrations
- Crafting activities such as beading mask holders
- Cooking meals together
- Virtual workshops such as budgeting and couponing for parents
Grantees also used the funding to cover the cost of winter coats for children, gift cards for families’ emergent needs, and wellness and learning packages. The program also offered webinars to the TCUs on family engagement and faculty wellness.
The IECE strategic planning process recognized the changing social and economic landscape in our place-based institutions and the value of continued support of lifelong, intergenerational learning in tribal communities. Native families, children, and ECE teachers and students play a vital role in all of this. The College Fund’s IECE strategic plan was developed through consultants, and interviews were conducted with 19 TCUs, Early Childhood Education (ECE) funders, and College Fund Board members and staff.
The Strategic Planning and Building TCU ECE Family Engagement program was followed by a $100,000 food security grant to support Native families’ food needs. Families were given gift cards for groceries, distributed by the ECE programs of 26 TCUs.
Program Gallery
Grantees
Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College
Keweenaw Bay Ojibwa Community College
Little Big Horn College
Northwest Indian College
Salish Kootenai College
Sitting Bull College
Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute
Related Blogs
Tribal Colleges Strengthen Family Engagement Through Early Childhood Education
In July 2014, The American Indian College Fund launched expanded efforts to support tribal colleges and universities in strengthening early childhood education through family engagement. The early childhood initiative, the Ké’ Family Engagement Early Childhood Initiative: Strengthening systems of shared responsibility among Native families, schools and communities seeks to deepen engagement with Native families across four tribal college communities
SIPI’s Ke’ Family Engagement Initiative Pumpkin Patch
Every year for Halloween, families and communities come together to give children an experience of laughter, festivities, and pumpkin carving! Halloween is an opportunity for our children to have fun dressing up in costumes, but more importantly celebrate the fall season!
ECE Researcher to Present Poster at Native Children’s Research Exchange (NCRE)
The American Indian College Fund’s Wakanyeja Early Childhood Education Initiative project director at Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute, Danielle Lansing, will be presenting a research poster at the Native Children’s Research Exchange (NCRE) at CU-Denver this week.
Shaping Native Early Childhood Education with Work and Commitment
This fall marks the final year of the initiative; reflection on the accomplishments of the four tribal college grantees spurs new hope and healing amongst the grantee institutions and their respective project partners. Engaging in collective inquiry to impact and change systems within and among tribal communities is complex work.
