Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa complete Community Solution Action Plan

What is First Children First Nations Child Care Collaborative?

The First Children First Nations Child Care Collaborative process is a community engagement process designed to develop right-size and culturally-specific solutions to address the needs of early care and education in Native nations which share the same geography as the United States.

First Children’s Finance (FCF) and Indigenous Visioning (IV) have partnered to create the First Children, First Nations Child Care Collaborative (FCFN) and launch an innovative community engagement process designed to increase the supply of high quality, affordable culturally relevant child care in tribal communities.

The purpose of the consultation is to guide communities in identifying the scope and size of their child care challenges, and to empower and support tribal communities to develop local solutions to address these challenges.

The importance of culturally relevant and high quality child care in tribal communities.

Changes in the local economy and the ongoing pandemic have greatly influenced the sustainability of a tribal community’s child care supply, and vice versa. That is why the First Children, First Nations Child Care Collaborative (FCFN) process addresses child care and early education challenges through a framework of community economic development and respect for the sovereignty of Native nations/tribal communities. The FCFN partnership is aware of the dire need for child care in Indian Country that is high quality, affordable, and culturally relevant for Indigenous families. Native nations are asking for customized, culturally relevant interventions to increase the supply and quality of tribal child care; the FCFN partnership seeks to provide this.

Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Community Solution Action Plan

The Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa was selected as one of the Native nations to participate in the FCFN community engagement process, and it established a local Indigenous Core Team to study culturally and linguistically responsive care in the area. The Fond du Lac Indigenous Core Team worked over the course of two years to gather and assess information about the supply and demand of child care in the area, facilitate community events to generate innovative ideas to address child care needs, and collaboratively created their Community Solution Action Plan. This plan was presented to the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa’s Reservation Business Committee in early 2023.