Project Description:
Collaborative project between Help Me Grow Parent Connectors, Indigenous Voices, and institutions at the University of Minnesota: CEED and ICI.
The significance of this project is that it
begins to address the longstanding barriers within the field including community engagement,
accessibility, and equity. Our long-term goal of this project is to implement an innovative
community engagement model that will respond to community needs by engaging communities
in bi-directional feedback loops connecting Part C services to understand families' funds of
knowledge, their needs, wants, cultures, languages, and traditions.
We will utilize a participatory approach to plan for engagement opportunities, gather information
from families in several culturally-responsive ways, and present information that has been
validated and co-created with families and community members. This approach provides an
innovative participatory-based research model aimed at extending the reach of community
engagement to both strengthen existing partnerships and cultivate new relationships with
families and EI system professionals in the focus communities. Our central hypothesis is that
increased intentional connections will yield higher engagement, participation, and stronger
relationships between families, communities, and Part C services that can lead to a more
equitable system. The primary aim of the proposed project is to strengthen existing relationships
and forge new community partnerships to optimize the bidirectional exchange of
information—linking networks for information gathering and dissemination of early health and
educational information to advance training opportunities for historically underrepresented
communities and the systems who serve them.
This project plans to implement a community-based approach to:
1. Develop a PLAN for culturally-responsive engagement opportunities that is co-created
with the members of the focus communities for whom its implementation is intended.
2. GATHER stories and knowledge about families' perspectives and experience in and
related to Part C Early Intervention.
3. SHARE results and recommendations with decision-makers, service providers, and
families in an effort to build a bidirectional and more equitable Part C system.
