Introduction
Link to the audio description version of the webinar >
For Indigenous peoples, the care and education of children is a sacred and highly valued responsibility. Creating intentional space for Indigenous children to enjoy their language, culture, and spirituality in early childhood education is crucial to the survival and resurgence of Indigenous peoples as a whole (Greenwood 2016). Research shows that Indigenous children have much better outcomes, academically and socially, when they receive a culturally sustaining education (Kana’iaupuni et. al 2010).
For Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) programs implementing language revitalization and cultural resilience strategies, gathering data to evaluate these strategies can be a complex task, and there are few existing resources that help provide guidance.
This webinar discusses:
- steps Tribes have taken in their work to bring new life to their Indigenous languages and share them more widely,
- national- and state-level research, and
- tools and methods to gather data.
The speakers include:
- Diana Gates, senior managing consultant, Mathematica
- Melody Redbird-Post, project director of the Tribal Child Care Capacity Building Center, a technical assistance service sponsored by the Office of Child Care
- Jessica Barnes-Najor, director for community partnerships, Office for Public Engagement and Scholarship at Michigan State University, and coprincipal investigator of the Tribal Early Childhood Research Center, supported by the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation
- Carolyn Codopony, Tribal CCDF Administrator, Comanche Nation
This webinar was hosted by the Child Care Research and Evaluation Capacity Building Center , with support from the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation in the Administration for Children and Families.
Purpose
This webinar aims to help Tribal CCDF Lead Agency staff who want to gather data and create measures that can tell a story for community members about the language revitalization and cultural resilience strategies in their CCDF program.
Citation
Child Care Research and Evaluation Capacity Building Center. 2023. “How to Tell the Story of Language Revitalization and Cultural Resilience Strategies in Tribal CCDF Programs.” OPRE Report #2024-042. Washington, DC: US Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation.