All Our Kin’s technical assistance (TA) team collaborates with organizations across the country engaged in innovative work to grow family child care (FCC) in their local communities.
In this edition of All Our Partners, we connect with Dr. Dynell Kellyman, Chief Operating Officer, and Mr. Spencer Lester, Chief Executive Officer, of Children’s Futures (CF) in Trenton, NJ. With the generous support of the Burke Foundation and the MacMillan Family Foundation, All Our Kin (AOK) and CF are partnering on a three-year project to build a staffed FCC network in Mercer County, NJ.
Read on to learn about how this partnership is building off of the leadership of local educators, and growing the number of registered FCC programs in the community.
Dynell Kellyman (Children's Futures), Jessica Nugent (Burke Foundation), Travonda Davenport (All Our Kin), Jan Welsh (Children’s Futures),
Spencer Lester (Children's Futures), Sophia Andreassi (MacMillan Family Foundation)
All Our Kin: Dr. Kellyman and Mr. Lester, could you please tell us about the work of CF overall?
Dr. Dynell Kellyman: We are a lean, mean team at CF that supports families in Mercer County and in the maternal health space. CF offers home visiting, doula, and case management programs, all rooted in our commitment to reducing health disparities across racial lines in Trenton, New Jersey. Our case management program provides referrals to families for things like food pantries and transportation, in addition to wellness and mental health check-ins.
As we expand our continuity of care, we are now doing FCC work more formally. We’re partnering with AOK to provide resources and support to home-based providers, who are so critical to our communities. My own children were educated in FCC, so this work is near and dear to my heart. We see it as part of a comprehensive spectrum of care for our clients.
AOK: How did CF originally connect with AOK?
Mr. Spencer Lester: This project was important to me because I grew up around home care. Last year, a colleague reached out and suggested we go to the open house that AOK was holding in Mercer County. I wasn’t able to attend, but I connected with Travonda, AOK’s team member who is leading the project. I let her know that we were really interested, and when we submitted the application, I think our passion really came through. We’re not just doing this to have another project on a piece of paper. We’re going to really integrate FCC into what CF does.
DK: AOK had met with FCC providers and community members, and they were doing interviews. We were one of a number of applicants. They were becoming familiar with what was happening in Mercer County. Our newly hired network director comes from an organization that worked with FCC educators, so she understands the field and the landscape analysis that AOK had done.
This type of work does not happen without alignment. When we met early on with Travonda and the AOK team, we realized, “They are not just talking about the work. They embody the work.” And that’s how we operate at CF, too. We don’t just work in the community, we work with the community.
SL: Our organization’s primary focus is women of childbearing age, and children aged 0-2, so this FCC project was a shoo-in for us. We know that half of young children are in child care centers, and half are being cared for in somebody’s house. How do we reach those caregivers and formalize this? How can we enhance the benefits for providers – their income, getting registered with the state, and so on? For us, this is not only work, but this is something that we truly care about and want to make happen.
AOK: Could you talk a bit about what it’s like to collaborate with AOK on building a staffed FCC network in Mercer County?
DK: It’s a great partnership. AOK respects our institutional knowledge as it relates to the community we’re serving. They don’t pretend to be experts on our community, and I think that’s really important. Then AOK provides the resources, the framework, the materials, and the support that we can then offer to our community. I’m excited as we continue to unfold the various layers of this project because there’s so much alignment between our two organizations.
AOK: We know the project is in its early stages, but do you have any anecdotes that show the impact of the CF-AOK collaboration so far?
DK: We just started our biweekly meetings with the FCC educators. It’s not just CF; Travonda is there too. Educators get to see this illustration of our partnership. We're modeling that for the educators because this is how we want to partner with them. There are 29 educators in our network so far.
Travonda and AOK didn’t just plop down in Mercer County, ask a bunch of questions, and then leave. We actually see the next phase of this, and AOK had a part in every step. So my hope is that what I hear from FCC educators in our community is like “Okay, we’re still doing the work that we talked about a year ago.” That really builds the relational equity and trust that are necessary to build the foundation for this work. Because without that, our foundation is shaky. So with the continued conversations with educators, we’re clearly saying, “We’re here to stay.”
FCC Educator Leaders Shaolin Brown and Hope Crumbley (front), Jan Welsh from Children’s Futures (back)
AOK: What role do FCC educators play in the work of CF and in the establishment of the FCC network?
DK: The informal leadership looks like our biweekly meetings with educators, where we share ideas and get their input. The more formal part is what we’re currently developing, which is our advisory panel that educators and other community members will sit on. This group of educators will be part of a leadership team. We don’t want to develop an agenda outside of the educators; we want to provide a structure so that they can drive their own learning.
The educators were involved in hiring the very director they now work with at CF. We think about continuity of care for our children, for our FCC educators, and for our clients, right? The same is true for how we partner. We want educators to feel cared for in this process, and not like they’re being talked at.
SL: This is the most important part of the process. We engaged educators last year. We followed up with them and shared that we applied for the grant. We kept them involved and in the conversation. And when we got the grant, we didn’t suddenly disappear. We said, “Here we are, come with us. What are your needs?” Many programs are cookie cutter and just try to make it fit. We’re coming in here instead and asking your opinion.
AOK: What’s the vision of the team at Children’s Futures? How do you hope your work will impact home-based child care educators and families in your region of New Jersey?
SL: I hope to see a truly impactful increase in the number of FCC educators registered in Mercer County. The community will thrive a little bit more. You're talking about better safety. You're talking about the kids being better educated.
DK: Success looks like more home-based educators becoming registered. That’s the goal in year one, year two, and year three. We’re trying to grow this network. The path to get there is fluid, and we’re open to methods. One of the things that we’re most excited about is that we feel very attuned to AOK in that we’re all students of this work as well. Our initial plan might change. As long as we're collecting data, as long as we're informing our funders, as long as we're talking to one another and educators about the way to get there, we're okay with that.
SL: I love the student mindset. If you take any program and you’re doing the same thing in year five that you’re doing in year one, you can’t be that successful.
AOK: Is there anything else you would like to share about your experience?
DK: Oftentimes, groups can be connected on mission and their hearts are in the work. But this is both hard work and heart work. If we don’t have both of those things, how do we work through the hard decisions? AOK are true collaborators in the space. We can talk through hard times when we might disagree on the approach because we are mission-aligned.
We are grateful to Mr. Lester, Dr. Kellyman, and the team at Children’s Futures for their thoughtful and dedicated collaboration! For more information on AOK’s technical assistance, you can sign up for our newsletter here.