Amanda Varley is the Preschool Development Grant Manager for the Minnesota Department of Education. Host Dr. Sherri Killins Stewart talks with Amanda about the ways her department has utilized partnerships to center family voices and increase opportunities for children and families.
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Special thanks to Dr. Aisha Ray, Michelle Stover Wright, The Equity Leaders Action Network (ELAN), and state leaders working in early childhood systems for their thought partnership.
Dr. Sherri Killins Stewart:
Welcome to Critical Connections, Leading for Equity, a podcast of the BUILD Initiative. I'm Dr. Sherri Killins Stewart. I am the Director of State Systems Alignment and Integration and Co-Director of State Services. This series focuses on how state leaders have used their roles, responsibilities, and influence to intentionally increase opportunity and remove barriers for children and families. You will hear about tangible ways leaders are centering the perspectives of Black, Native American, Latino and Latina, and other populations marginalized by the programs and services within the early childhood system. Leaders are collaborating across state, regional, and local departments and agencies to support the well-being of families and children. We don't present as experts, rather participants on the journey with you. I hope you will come as a learner seeking to take action.
Killins Stewart: We don't present as experts, rather participants on this journey with you. I hope you will come as a learner and seek to understand and be ready to take action.
Killins Stewart: Today, we're talking to Amanda Varley, the Preschool Development Grant Manager for the Minnesota Department of Education. Amanda has worked at the Minnesota Department of Education for 10 years, having roles in Race to the Top, Kindergarten Entry Assessment, and Early Learning Scholarships prior to becoming the state's preschool Development Grant Manager in 2019. Minnesota's preschool development grant is a partnership of the Departments of Education, Health, Human Services, and the Children's Cabinet. Amanda is also a mom of a toddler, and she joins us today to talk about how she's connected with communities and engage cross-agency partners to increase opportunity for diverse children and families in Minnesota.
Welcome, Amanda.
Amanda Varley: Thank you. I'm excited to be here.
Killins Stewart:
Thank you so much for being here today and talking about your intentional actions to really intentionally increase the well-being of young children and families.
You know me, I always want to start with a conversation about you as a leader and why you do this work, why we do something is just as important as what we do. Before we dive into the conversation about the work in Minnesota, can you share with me why you're doing this work to increase well-being for Black, Native American, Latino, Latina children and families? What brought you to this work and what keeps you going?
Varley: Great. Thank you, Sherri. I'm excited to be here and having this conversation. I'm from a family, particularly of women who just strongly believe in serving their communities, and so going back to my great grandma, she was a one-room schoolhouse teacher, and my own grandma worked in libraries and volunteered with a free healthcare clinic, and then my mom just retired from working with unhoused children and families, and so I just had this strong sense of helping my community and want to demonstrate that for my own daughter, so I've always been interested in so many different issues from women's rights to the environment, to housing, and for me, early childhood is where I felt like I could make the greatest difference in how it's connected to everything. I've been working in the field for about 10 years, so that's a little bit more about me.
Killins Stewart: Yeah, nice. Appreciate that, and so you talked about your family and the background and libraries, which have a special place in my heart, or housing and your decision to focus in early childhood. It really points out that all of these issues have a root cause, and we talk about using data to really plan and monitor to decide who we should be centering, so why do you decide to center Black, Native American, Latino or Latina, or other marginalized populations, and can you give us an example from your recent work of how you've used that information to really tailor for a specific population or group?
Varley: Sure. Like you said, I manage our state's Preschool Development Grant, which works to advance our vision across the state, and that vision was created with community in 2017, and in Minnesota, it's that when we focus on children and families who are facing racial, geographic, and economic inequities, all children in Minnesota will thrive, and so our goal is to make it easier for children and families to get what they need, period, and our team does this in expansive ways. So much of how we decided the work that we're doing is based on community engagement, so in our original Preschool Development Planning Grant, we engaged with over 1,300 families throughout the state, and of course, really focused on those who are furthest from opportunity, and so partnered with all 11 of our Tribal nations and worked with other community organizations who helped us reach Black, Brown and Latinx populations throughout the state.
Killins Stewart: I mean, it's great you've talked to 1,300 families to get started. How are you continuing to talk to families, and what kinds of small or large changes did you make in implementing the Preschool Development Grant to really make sure that Black, Latino, Latinx families benefited?
Varley: One of many examples of where we focused in is we knew that our American Indian children were there, I think 2% of the population in Minnesota, and so, then when you start desegregating even by Tribal nation, they're a population that it needs to be more strongly highlighted with an inserted effort because numbers wise, they're not showing up in our data in the way that we really need in order to make changes. What we did in the Preschool Development Grant from our planning grant, hearing from Tribal nations, like we really want the state to center our families in this work, so we were able to hire a dedicated Tribal Nations lead, who focuses entirely on our collaborations with Tribal Nations and American Indian serving organizations as a part of this grant, and so examples of what she's been able to do with this work is it's resulted in dedicated funding that's gone like prioritizing Tribal Nations and American Indian serving communities in our funding. That goes out, our grants. We've also, and this is one of my favorites, is we've partnered with American Indian community members on co-designing in an Indigenous evaluation that recognizes cultural knowledge, as in community knowledge as the basis. One thing that they're designing, which I think is so great is a grandma test, and so coming up with a way of knowing that the elders of our community know the well-being of kids, and so how can we make that a formalized part of how we're learning about our communities?
Varley: Then, also, within that, recognizing data sovereignty and that the information that we learn about, that we learn within the Tribal Nations or American Indian children and families really, it's their story to tell, and so making sure that within that Indigenous evaluation, they only share with the state what they want to share with the state. That's been an example of how we've centered specifically in that case, American Indian children and families, and just the benefit of having that partnership.
Killins Stewart: Yeah, that's so exciting, Amanda. I mean, you were able to hire someone. Lucy, I know, happens to be Native American, and so she had an inroad, not to all 11 tribes, but to the one she starts with, and then respect in other places, and that probably made a huge difference. You talked about Native American children not showing up in the data, and you meant the data, like there are lots of populations that don't show up in the census, but you could see that you had 11 tribes, and so there were children, and so your intentional efforts to go out and find those children, and then talk to those communities about what they wanted. Love the grandma's test and the idea that all of our screening tools and assessments that aren't influenced by culture don't get us to the right answer, and so partnering with the Native American community around that will give us a better sense of the well-being of children and some better ideas about what that community values.
Killins Stewart: Moving to take in action, and you've already gone there and really grounding the work in the voice of families, and I think you demonstrate that, talking about the grandma's test, are there other strategies that you've developed in response to what you heard from families to support their early childhood and well-being?
Varley: Yeah. I think another example is in our community engagement, the community made very clear to us that they have the answers to the challenges that we're trying to solve and that the state needs to directly invest in the community, and so with that, we were able to partner with our Department of Health Center of Health Equity to add to funding that they already had in these grants. They are called community solutions grants, and the goals of those grants are to invest directly in organizations who are serving children of color and American Indian children on a variety of things that promote their well-being and health, and so what I think is really neat about that is a couple of things at the grant-making level, which is those grants have been able to go to doula programs, language revitalization, dental services. Then, how they were awarded is really interesting because in statute, there is an advisory body that's made up entirely of community members of color, and so they were the ones who designed the request for proposal. They were the ones that disseminated the grant opportunity.
Varley: They did the review. They've also been working on, "How do we capture the learnings and what are the reporting requirements in doing technical assistance?," and so it's driven very much by this advisory council, so the level of just the grants being fantastic, who they're serving, but then the systems level change that we're doing and how we think about grant-making in a new way at the state and how we've been able to influence grant-making structures across the whole state enterprise beyond education, health, and human services, but we have a lot of lessons learned in innovations and grant-making.
Killins Stewart: Yeah, that's exciting. Is there a specific policy, because I imagine in the past, having community involved in decisions about funds, people would've called that conflict of interest, so are there specific practices or policies that you had to say, "Trust me on this to get to the end you wanted"?
Varley: Right, and the conflict of interest thing has come up quite a few times that we've been able to think through different ... Like obviously, if someone was on the board of an organization or something like that, they wouldn't be a part of the review, but for the most part, we've been able to work through that. Some of the other innovations in grant-making that I found great beyond having this advisory council is having community reviewers for grants and paying them, making sure that we compensate them for their time and expertise. We also have been working to, in this grant, opportunity in others to allow people to tell their story beyond the written narrative, but having site visits so that they can share. Not all organizations have professional grant writers.
Varley: In fact, many small organizations, of course, do not, and so making sure that there are ways that people can tell their story beyond written. We also, in a different grant opportunity for our community resource hubs, provided technical assistance specifically for helping potential grantees pull data on their community.
Killins Stewart: Nice.
Varley: So each one was offered 30 minutes of working with someone who is a data professional at the state who could pull all the demographic information and access, so in a specific way, supporting how the grant was written. Then, this is so small, but just being really intentional about how requests for proposals are disseminated is something that, I think too often, we default to our list serves and just posting it on our website, but it really is the ongoing relationship development over time and making sure that we share these opportunities widely and give enough time for people to respond and earn us.
Killins Stewart: The idea having enough time is huge, and really love your example. It is huge to give people 30 minutes. We ask them a question, tell me the data in your community, and the truth is we have the answer in states already, so if we want them to feed it back to us, giving them some technical assistance, that's a powerful strategy, and I'm sure made a difference in your ability to choose. You've started to talk about people and program and structures. This isn't work you're doing by yourself. You've said a couple of times, "I've got partners."
Killins Stewart: You've mentioned other colleagues who, I know are with you in the work, because listening to families really leads to an increase of understanding of a range of issues, and therefore, removing barriers is not just what you're able to do through preschool development grant or offering preschool opportunities, it really requires a collaborative response, so what are the challenges to collaboration that you run into, and how has your collaboration really helped you reach those families that are farthest from opportunity?
Varley: Collaboration's key to everything that our team does, and like you were suggesting, is children and families do not come in pieces, and so our solutions need to be multifaceted, and so we've found partnerships in many unexpected places when we've started doing this work based on what we've heard from community members, and so we've been working with our Attorney General's office on how we do data sharing across our agencies to make it easier for children and families to get what they need. Same thing with working with our centralized IT department, having conversations with our Department of Economic Development, and even our Department of Natural Resources and Corrections, so all these unexpected and fantastic partnerships have emerged. There, of course, is no shortage of challenges. The one that I'm really hung up on right now is we don't have great ways to tell our story. What we are doing, of course, a big part of our community engagement is both hearing from the community, but then having those reciprocal feedback loops, where we're continuing to build relationships and sharing back, "Okay, here's what we heard from you."
Varley: "Is that correct?," and then, "Here's what we think we're going to do about it. Does that make a difference?" The work that we're doing is really challenging, and it makes me a little nervous about some sustainability efforts. I will say another success in building these reciprocal relationships is, actually I work with BUILD Initiative with our community resource hubs, and so we have communities of practice that are hosted by you, Sherri, actually, about once a month in those communities of practice are about a variety of topics, whether it's family navigation to building partnerships and the structure is great, because it's the first hour is those community organizations, plus state staff, coming together to talk about what are the barriers, the challenges, the successes that those community organizations are experiencing as they support families or what they're directly hearing from families, because so often, as a state, we work through our intermediary organizations. Then, the second half is structured, where those community organizations step away, and the state staff really reflect on, "Okay, what did we hear, and what are our assignments based on what we heard?"
Varley: Families are needing energy assistance. Well, we need to forge a relationship with our Department of Commerce so that we can get connected to that resource, or what professional development is needed, and sometimes it results in diving deep into policy changes.
Killins Stewart: How are you ... You started to talk about this, continuing to build your network, because every example you give, you actually, for most people, talked about a partner they wouldn't naturally go to. The AG's office, most people try to stay away from that office, not lean into that office, even on behalf of children and families, so building your network and building relationships with new communities, I know we've talked about this before, takes a lot of time, but how do you intentionally keep adapting your leadership and building your network and really making space for what's necessary for the children and families we're centering?
Varley: I've been with the department for 10 years, and so a little bit a part of it is just these long-term relationships that have been built. Another factor for success in Minnesota is our Children's Cabinet. This is co-chaired by our Governor and our Lieutenant Governor, and all 22 state commissioners of 22 state agencies serve on the Children's Cabinet around this centralized goal of coordinating services for children and families, and so they have been really important from the top level of doing cross-agency collaboration and forging some of those relationships. I truly believe that when people go into state service, they want to make things better for the citizens in Minnesota, and so I rarely come across a time where I send an email or try to reach out to someone in different department and I say, "Here's a problem I'm trying to solve, and I think you can be a part of the solution" when they're not excited to start thinking through it together, and so it's been an exciting time right now, too, with the increased attention and these investments in early childhood to forge these collaborations. Especially, I think people, when we say, "Here's what we're hearing from community," people are craving to know how people experience their programs and what ideas they have for making it better, so I have a lot of optimism about just that level of relationship building, but a lot of people don't know where to start in getting that community feedback.
Killins Stewart: Yeah. I love what you're saying, like use the voice of community as a bridge into a new relationship, assume positive intent. If you're in state government, you want to be able to make a difference, and so bring people something to work on that's really grounded, not near education or position type, but rather, in what community is saying, and ask people to think with you about solving the problem so that you're co-creating it based on your interests and their interests as well. One last question, what advice would you give other state leaders that are beginning this work, and then what hope do you see on the horizon, because lots of leaders really want to lean in, but they see more barriers and opportunities, so what advice do you give them, and then what hope do you see on the horizon?
Varley: I mean, I think a theme to everything I'm saying is this deep relationship building is the key, and we've been able to move mountains when we're working together and actively thinking about all the different resources. Yeah, it's easy to feel overwhelmed, I guess, but when you start breaking it down in whatever role we have, we're working, we have time, we have funding, we have policy change that we can make. There's so many different levers towards change, so I see a lot of opportunities. It's both that relationship building at the systems level, which we talked about, like how much change can happen when we are working with different partners across unexpected state agencies, or we haven't talked about the counties, the Head Starts, the school districts too, but there's a lot that can happen when we think that local to state connection as well, but then also, again, when we're really centering the voices of Black, Brown and Indigenous communities, to ensure that the solutions that we're coming up with directly impact community. I think that would be my advice to state leaders, is centering family and community voice, and then developing the relationships.
Varley: No one's doing this alone. I mean, we are all on the same team, trying to help families and communities. My hope for everything for our early childhood system is that we center children and families in everything we do, and we really think about this whole family approach, and a comprehensive early childhood system as comprehensive as we can make it, and it is, so while education and care are critical components and so important, families also, their employment status, their access to transportation, mental health, healthcare, clean air and water makes such a difference, and so my hope is that we really think about the whole family and actively work towards supporting the whole family and have a really big tent in those solutions.
Killins Stewart: Yeah, because we can, because we're making decisions every day, we're shifting things every day, so I hear you. Like center families as you do the hard work of state government and do it in a way that supports the whole family, that just because we have siloed funding stream and siloed programs, that's not how families see the world. Really appreciate you. Thank you so much for being with us. I think you've given people great kernels, relationship, relationship, relationship, and you didn't say that happens overnight.
Killins Stewart: That actually happens over time, and so to be patient with that. Thank you for joining us. If you've gained an insight from today's episode, let us know by leaving a comment, giving us a rating, or sharing it with your colleagues. Critical Connections, Leading for Equity is a podcast of the BUILD Initiative. It's produced by LWC Studios.
Killins Stewart: Producers are Kandice Cole and Paulina Velasco, and mixed by Selena de La Cruz. BUILD Initiative partners with state leaders to promote equitable, high-quality, and family-serving systems that result in young children thriving and learning. To learn more about BUILD's work, visit our website at www.buildinitiative.org. I'm Dr. Sherri Killins. Thank you for listening.
CITATION:
Killins Stewart, Sherri, host. “Creating Family Centered Partnerships in Minnesota.” Critical Connections, BUILD Initiative, August 23, 2022, www.buildinitiative.org.