Child Care & Development Program

Annual 2005

The CCDF program of the Seneca-Cayuga Tribe continues to better assist low income families with child care services. We continue to strive to help families in our Native American community to have the ability to work or acquire an education.

A primary concern of our CCDF program is to ensure that our families have state of the art child care facilities. Child care facilities are not only responsible for caring for children, but they are also responsible for educating our children. The CCDF program helps assist the facilities with numerous training throughout the year. These trainings have included sessions on the food program, CPR and First Aid, CPR Instructors Certification, Child Passenger Safety, Directors training and helping individuals acquire their Certificate of Mastery. The CPR Instructors Certification training included Child and Adult First Aid and instructions on how to use a defibulator. The Child Passenger Safety class included safety information and installation of car seats, latest technical information on car seats, LATCH, tethers and recalls. The Director training provided the child care directors and administrators with the opportunity to identify, consider and reflect upon both the inter- and intra- personal relationships that are developed and nurtured in the administrative role. The participants reviewed and developed a better understanding of their role as child care professionals, employment plans, interaction with various situations and people, parent and family relations, managing stress and managing time and space.

As the need for child care arises so does the financial burden of child care facilities to acquire all materials and training to meet the demands. This year CCDF was able to offer quality grants to assist with the educational and Health and Safety needs of the child care facilities. The facilities are able to use the quality grant in order to acquire new products for their facilities, to better improve the health and safety standards and educational materials. The Seneca-Cayuga CCDF and the Miami Nation CCDF programs joined together in purchasing grants for all active facilities. Items purchased consisted of the Start Write Handwriting Software, Big Screen Microscope which included insect, plant, vegetable and animal slide kits. The Start Write software will be a great tool that uses the computer to teach handwriting. This will create handwriting assignments consisting of letters in dot/dash form printed on pages for the children to trace each letter. With each of the items purchased we hope to incorporate handwriting skills, reading and science for all of native children.

This year the Annual Provider Appreciation Banquet was held May 10, 2005 at the Ottawa/Peoria building. There were 175 providers that attended and this years theme was "Native American Culture." We invited local Native American dancers to demonstrate and perform apart of our culture which included round dancing, intertribal and stomp dance. The main performance was performed by Jackie Bird of Bushnell, South Dakota, who performs her Native American Culture through Inspirational Speaking, Hoop Dancing and singing. Jackie performed the story of creation with her hoops. The Hoop Dance has a different meaning for each tribe, for Jackie the dance is for healing. The hoops stand for the circle of life. We also served a traditional meal which consisted of beef and hominy, soup corn, fry bread, grape dumplings, and of course everyone’s favorite Indian tacos.

Our program also supports and participates in the "Week of the Young Child." The week of events consisted of a Children s Fun Fest Picnic, Buddy Big Mountain and petting zoo. Approximately 2600 children participated in the week long event which included day care, preschool and school age children.

Our goal is to provide all the assistance that is available through our program to Native American families, children and the child care facilities in which they utilize. We are very proud of our ability through our program to offer this assistance and to provide a better quality of life for our Native American community.

Conferences attended are as follows:

July 2004 The CCDF Director attended the 2004 Cluster training "Leading together through Collaboration and Coordination" in Oklahoma City.

September 2004 The CCDF Director and Intake Clerk attended the ACF Bi-Regional Tribal Child Care Conference "Promoting Health, Wellness and Prevention in Tribal Child Care Communities" in Albuquerque, NM.

March 2005 The CCDF Intake Clerk attended the quarterly OTCCA meeting in Shawnee, OK.

April 2005 The CCDF department attended the Eleventh National American Indian and Alaska Native Child Care Conference "Creating Positive Outcomes in Tribal Early Care and Education Settings" in Salt Lake City, UT.