2022 Rural Fellows—Rural Childcare

Flora Sangwa Author

08/08/2022 Added

9 Plays

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Student and Community Fellows talk about the community development projects they worked on with the Rural Childcare team during Summer 2022.

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[00:00:01.440]Hi, everyone, I'm Dr. Sarah J. Zuckerman.
[00:00:03.420]I'm an Associate Professor at the Education Administration
[00:00:06.360]and I'm gonna be talking to you today with my rural fellow
[00:00:09.720]about our project.
[00:00:12.852]My name is Flora Sangwa Gwaneza
[00:00:15.619]and I'm uh,
[00:00:16.452]part of the Rural Fellowship Program,
[00:00:18.537]and I'll be with the Dr Sarah.
[00:00:21.510]Um...
[00:00:23.076]So the project is
[00:00:23.909]Early Childhood Care and Education
[00:00:26.211]in Rural Placemaking,
[00:00:28.204]and it Economic Development.
[00:00:33.178]So,
[00:00:34.011]this project fits with University of Nebraska priorities
[00:00:37.380]including the College of Education, um...
[00:00:40.530]with the thriving young children and strong communities.
[00:00:43.680]The grand challenges:
[00:00:45.090]Early Childhood Development and Education,
[00:00:47.160]focus area...
[00:00:48.600]and Rural Prosperity Nebraska's
[00:00:50.340]focus on Placemaking and People Attraction.
[00:00:53.730]Because early childhood is seen
[00:00:55.080]as a way to bring people into the community
[00:00:57.750]and help them stay by allowing them to live and work.
[00:01:04.590]When we're talking about the childcare,
[00:01:08.790]it is essentially considered the childhood kids,
[00:01:11.670]especially in Nebraska rural communities.
[00:01:14.677]So 84% of Nebraska counties do not have enough ECE slots
[00:01:20.447]to meet the community needs.
[00:01:22.460]And 75% of children under six,
[00:01:26.458]live with families
[00:01:27.627]and...
[00:01:29.444]Which both parents work
[00:01:30.903]and 66 are in regularly in non-parent care.
[00:01:36.677]Across the country,
[00:01:37.770]59% of rural communities lack adequate licensed childcare.
[00:01:42.540]For families who are of Hispanic and Latino origin,
[00:01:45.997]60% lived in a childcare desert
[00:01:49.890]and childcare deserts suppress maternal employment
[00:01:52.320]by 3% and 5%
[00:01:54.540]for those with children under age six.
[00:01:57.210]And Nebraska has one of the highest proportions
[00:01:59.190]in the country of women with children
[00:02:01.200]who are in the workforce.
[00:02:04.410]So the overall goals of a bigger project
[00:02:06.870]is to develop a USDA grant proposal.
[00:02:11.130]Um...
[00:02:11.963]To develop and measure that can capture
[00:02:13.740]economic activity related to early childhood programs.
[00:02:17.190]This is something that's been challenging
[00:02:18.870]for researchers to do with current data.
[00:02:22.740]Develop a toolkit and resource guide
[00:02:25.110]to support collective action
[00:02:26.610]for early childhood program development.
[00:02:29.040]And continued absence with federal and state support.
[00:02:33.240]And then also develop materials to advocate
[00:02:35.910]for increasing federal and state funding
[00:02:38.250]while preserving local control
[00:02:39.960]and problem solving of early childhood care and education.
[00:02:47.463]So, some of the things that had some completions
[00:02:52.078]were conduct a literature review
[00:02:54.957]on rural childcare access and how it impacts
[00:02:59.679]the development of the community.
[00:03:03.696]I had to also collect information from statewide, um,
[00:03:10.896]what rural communities that have active early childhood
[00:03:15.720]initiatives and how they work.
[00:03:18.946]I had to identify potential comparison community
[00:03:22.370]and identify the stakeholders for future interviews.
[00:03:29.997]And then when it comes to like,
[00:03:31.530]accomplishment on a project,
[00:03:33.060]I was able to, like,
[00:03:35.486]collect information from different articles and reports.
[00:03:39.483]And allocate...
[00:03:41.482]I was downloading those articles on early childhood,
[00:03:46.942]rural community development...
[00:03:48.929]The community capitals framework,
[00:03:51.042]then economics of early childhood education.
[00:03:54.506]And I was also able to collect information
[00:03:57.700]of those communities demographic data,
[00:04:00.977]as well as contact information.
[00:04:03.469]On this project,
[00:04:04.447]I also volunteered, which was part of the program.
[00:04:09.705]So, for the overall project this summer
[00:04:12.510]we identify comparison sites
[00:04:14.550]for an ongoing pilot study in Nebraska.
[00:04:17.400]Thanks to Flora's hard work
[00:04:18.750]to track down the demographic information and contacts.
[00:04:22.963]I have developed a multi-site research team
[00:04:26.070]for the USDA grant with some folks in Cornell University
[00:04:30.090]and Skidmore college,
[00:04:31.380]who have done a lot of work in this area in the Northeast.
[00:04:34.650]And we are developing a grant proposal
[00:04:36.870]for a national study that would use multiple
[00:04:41.100]comparative case studies across different state context
[00:04:44.100]to understand how folks are coming together to
[00:04:46.800]develop early childhood care and capacity
[00:04:48.900]in their communities.
[00:04:50.310]The processes they use to do this
[00:04:52.874]and how they understand early childhood
[00:04:55.980]as a component of community and economic development,
[00:04:59.550]as well as place making.
[00:05:05.718]We can actually solve this question:
[00:05:07.536]"Why is this work important to the future
[00:05:09.530]of rural Nebraska?"
[00:05:11.423]Starting with, this being a two-generation
[00:05:14.349]approach to addressing
[00:05:16.449]the current and the future workforce.
[00:05:19.454]Especially in Nebraska,
[00:05:20.666]which has a charge.
[00:05:22.046]It is also a return on investment
[00:05:24.950]because it is highest in the earliest
[00:05:27.397]years of life.
[00:05:28.336]This kinda reduces education and other costs
[00:05:32.496]that might come up later.
[00:05:35.814]Investing in early childhood is also gonna be
[00:05:39.472]potential support resident attraction
[00:05:42.686]and retention.
[00:05:46.828]As I said before,
[00:05:48.429]I had 10 to volunteer.
[00:05:51.414]I have eventually, I reduced the emission.
[00:05:53.896]And for ways, I learned connections with people.
[00:05:57.448]I collected supplied and about 50 birthday cards
[00:06:01.937]for the guests, at the people's city Mission.
[00:06:04.461]And, for this,
[00:06:05.488]I get a chance to see how I can connect the people.
[00:06:12.484]But in a rural community.
[00:06:14.904]So it is- it was a great point to connect with um,
[00:06:17.916]so many people back to the community.
[00:06:23.146]And then, when it comes to
[00:06:25.447]"How will you use what you've learned
[00:06:27.233]from this experience in the future?",
[00:06:29.186]there's so many things that I learned
[00:06:31.169]from this experience of started with these kids,
[00:06:34.919]of working with Dr Sarah in the literature review,
[00:06:39.933]which was amazing.
[00:06:41.437]But (inaudible) I will be using this in the future.
[00:06:44.467]And I was also blessed with working
[00:06:46.646]and connecting with other people in Nebraska.
[00:06:50.447]Which, I haven't actually stayed long.
[00:06:53.435]I'm so grateful.
[00:06:55.085]And it's important to be, um...
[00:06:57.633]It was a very important thing,
[00:06:59.036]probably in the interview time.
[00:07:01.061]I miss the kinda connections, um
[00:07:02.952]to charity things,
[00:07:04.984]when I worked at on the project
[00:07:06.697]everything when I was working...
[00:07:08.709]was, um
[00:07:10.217]something (inaudible).
[00:07:13.467]But this validated me to try other things
[00:07:16.375]and I believe it's courage.
[00:07:18.183](inaudible)
[00:07:22.533]I understand that the importance of volunteering matters
[00:07:26.433]and why is really important in the community,
[00:07:31.143]especially in Nebraska.
[00:07:33.432]I was also able apply new leadership skills,
[00:07:36.460]and started getting it from class.
[00:07:39.936]Was also able to apply in all those projects.
[00:07:43.964]Yeah.
[00:07:46.487](thud)

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2022 Rural Fellows—Rural Childcare

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