Tag

children

Sep 26

Nonprofit engages Grant County youth with a new mobile play experience

By Feature

WonderSpace expands options in area with one of Indiana’s highest rates of childhood poverty

by Shari Finnell, editor/writer, Not-for-profit News

After Stephanie Freemyer and her family returned to her hometown of Marion, Ind., several years ago, she was struck by the lack of indoor opportunities for children to engage in stimulating play. Her two young children, ages 5 and 2 at the time, often complained of having “nothing to do.”

“When we were in North Carolina and Pasadena (Calif.), our kids were outside all the time,” Freemyer said. “Then coming here, it was cold, raining, or snowing eight months out of the year. It really impacted our kids.”

Grant County, where Marion is located, is familiar with these types of comparisons when it comes to opportunities for children. For years, it has had the distinction of having one of the highest rates of child poverty in Indiana — as high as 31 percent in 2018 and 22.7 percent in 2019, according to Indiana Kids Count data. That compares to a national childhood poverty rate of 14.4 percent in 2019.

And, as research continuously reveals, childhood poverty can lead to other challenges, including poor academic outcomes and an elevated risk of behavioral, social, and health challenges. In Grant County, 2018 average math and reading proficiency scores lagged behind state averages — 36 percent for math and 40 percent for reading, compared to the state’s averages of 46 percent and 49 percent, respectively.

These types of statistics, along with the lack of indoor play opportunities, were on Freemyer’s mind when she launched WonderSpace as a nonprofit in 2019 with no previous experience in establishing an organization. WonderSpace now includes a mobile play experience of four distinct areas designed to increase health and wellness among young people through physical, exploratory, imaginative, and cognitive play.

Since it doesn’t have a permanent location, WonderSpace welcomes visitors to free one-day or two-day pop-up mobile play days held in schools, churches, and businesses that donate their space. In its first year, more than 600 children and family members attended WonderSpace pop-up events. Last year, it welcomed more than 5,000 individuals to the mobile play event, which features the interactive stations Cardboard City, Imagination Playground, Snug Play, and Higher Flyers. The stations all contain loose parts that encourage exploration, engineering, and imagination.

Freemyer, who also serves as the children’s ministry director for College Wesleyan Church in Marion, noted that many Grant County families aren’t able to drive for an hour to reach destinations like the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis or the Science Center in Fort Wayne. The realization of those restrictions motivated her to move forward with her idea to create a children’s experience in Grant County.

In 2018, Angela Leffler, an associate professor in education at Indiana Wesleyan University, and Freemyer attended a 2018 Hatch-a-thon run by Ministry Incubators, which helps people launch ministry-focused ideas. As part of the competition, they won $500, which they dedicated to securing a business name.

The project continued to evolve after they hosted a community fundraiser to pay for $11,000 worth of play equipment. Sponsorships and donations followed to help fund additional play materials, supplies, and a 26-foot trailer to transport blocks, cardboard elements, and other loose play materials.

Meeting community needs

Tara Griffin, executive assistant at WonderSpace and a former teacher, said it was important to host WonderSpace as a free event to ensure access for children from all backgrounds. She also stressed the importance of families playing with their children, which may not come naturally for some of them.

“It is family directed,” Griffin said. “It’s not a place where parents drop off their kids and come back in two hours. They stay and engage with them. That’s what makes it so special. Families need to be provided those opportunities.”

WonderSpace also has been beneficial because it encourages socialization among young children who haven’t had opportunities to play with other children during COVID-19 lockdowns and social distancing, Griffin pointed out.

The mobile play experience also is designed to meet the needs of children who may need a space separate from the larger areas to comfortably play, Griffin said. WonderSpace has designated calm or quiet areas.

“We try to make it accessible everyone, including handicapped children, children with special needs, or anyone who might be inhibited from playing in a larger environment,” Griffin said. “We want to provide an area for all children to be able to play and engage.”

According to Shayona Funches, a long-time Grant County resident, consultant, and former board member for WonderSpace, the nonprofit is meeting numerous community needs. Funches, who has three children, said that the area has been in decline for decades. During that time, many businesses have closed, including bowling alleys and movie theaters, she said.

“We’re not like Fort Wayne or Indianapolis, where there are a lot of things to do,” Funches said. “At one time, there was always something going on here. That’s just not the case anymore.”

WonderSpace fills a void not only by providing children a stimulating play experience, but also by connecting people throughout the community.

Funches said that WonderSpace has been successful, partly because Freemyer invited community input from the start. She said that it is important for nonprofits to ask questions. “What does your community want? What are their hopes?,” Funches said. “You want to them to buy into whatever you’re doing because eventually you will need their support. It also was important for Stephanie to have a team of people who truly believed in the vision.”

Freemyer continues to receive reinforcement that WonderSpace is making an impact, but one special moment will always stay with her.

During the opening night, a mentor to several troubled youth who were exhibiting signs of play deprivation came over to Freemyer with her smartphone held out. She displayed a photo she had captured while the children were playing. The photo showed a boy’s joyful face. The mentor told Freemyer that it was the first time she had seen him smile.

She immediately recalled her son’s prayer during dinner the night before; he had prayed that there would be smiles at WonderSpace. “I still get choked up,” she said. “I knew we’d see smiles. I just didn’t know it would be so significant.”

Jun 14

Pandemic reveals the challenges in eliminating inequities among Hoosier students

By Feature

Local nonprofit leaders predict a complex journey in addressing underlying issues

by Shari Finnell, editor/writer, Not for Profit News

Like many other nonprofit organizations, the team at Christel House Indianapolis had to quickly assess how to carry out its mission in spite of COVID-19 restrictions in early 2020 — an endeavor that revealed many of the challenges facing the students they serve.

“When the pandemic hit last March, our board members and our entire team came together and realized that the pandemic was not just going to last for a couple of weeks,” said Dr. Sarah Weimer, executive director of Christel House Indianapolis.

It was a critical undertaking as they considered the potential for educational setbacks among Christel House students living in some of the most under-resourced communities in Indianapolis. The closing of school buildings for 2,300 K-12 students and 750 adult learners would require addressing any challenges in their home environments.

Technology was identified as a priority, and the team implemented a plan to distribute devices to each of their students at their Indianapolis schools. However, that plan only addressed part of the equation. “They had the device but couldn’t access the Internet to download their assignments,” Weimer said. “We discovered that over 50 percent of our students in Indianapolis did not have access to WiFi.”

Although telecommunications companies offered discounted and free internet service for students in low-income households during the pandemic, more challenges came their way. “Providers were having deals for families to get free internet, but they had barriers,” Weimer said. “If you owed a bill, you couldn’t get free access. If you didn’t have a social security number, you couldn’t get access.” Through a partnership with the Indianapolis Mayor’s Office and a fundraising initiative, Christel House was able to purchase data packages totaling $10,000 a month to support their students. 

In looking back, Weimer said the pandemic further revealed the inequities that already existed based on demographics and neighborhoods. “The inequity question is one that we’re going to be grappling with for years to come,” Weimer said. “We don’t have a good grasp of how impoverished communities and communities of color were impacted by the pandemic. We know statistically but we don’t have an understanding of the toll, including the emotional and mental toll.

“There’s going to be a lot to unpack for the kids,” she added. “Besides academic and learning loss, the students we serve come from backgrounds where they need additional mental health services, food insecurity and childhood trauma, all of which were exacerbated by the pandemic,”

Dennis E. Bland, president of the Center for Leadership Development, an organization that equips African American youth with education, business and community leadership opportunities, including scholarships, said that the pandemic highlighted varying mindsets about the value of an education — a gap that must be addressed to ensure that equity is achieved.

Bland said there often is a perception that everyone understands the opportunities that are open to an individual who is committed to advancing their education. However, he said, that lack of understanding can be at the root of some inequities.

Students, especially those growing up in households where the importance of an education is stressed, will more likely take advantage of tutoring, counseling, summer classes, college prep and other programs that are available to them. “Students who were committed to taking advantage of those resources were the students who did the best,” he said. “It’s not necessarily the lack of resources, it’s a lack of understanding about the value of an education.”

Bland said the conversation must start there — educating students and their family about the value of an education. “It is the duty of caring people in our community to encourage students to study and to take advantage of these resources — not whether or not you feel like it. This is about whether or not you want to be successful. Success often means doing the opposite of what you feel.”

“We need to give more people an education on education,” Bland added. “We struggle as a society because we go along as if we think that people innately value education and learning.”

The challenges in understanding the impact of the pandemic on students is multi-faceted, Weimer agreed. “It’s not just about academic preparedness,” she said. We must address the social and emotional issues that have been confounded during the pandemic year. We will be focusing on those issues during the upcoming year.”

Christel House has had a history of addressing those complexities as part of the support it provides students. “We follow our students for five years after they graduate,” Weimer explained. “Poverty isn’t alleviated just because they graduated. The hurdles they have to overcome don’t magically disappear after they get a diploma.”

The organization tailors a support plan for each student, depending upon their specific needs. As they navigate college or other educational and career paths, each high school graduate stays in contact with college and career administrators who are aware of the potential barriers to their success.

“They (students) can proactively reach out if they need gas cards if they lose a job. If they have a job interview, we can help them secure interview clothes,” Weimer said. “We may have students in college who will sign up for classes and realize their books are not covered by financial aid. We’ll pay for their books.”

Navigating the complexities of college, like understanding what a Bursar’s Office is, can be difficult for first-generation high school graduates or first-generation college-goers, especially since they can’t go to their families for direction, Weimer added. “Some things are foreign for a large portion of our families,” she said.

While these challenges were already familiar to Christel House, the pandemic shed more light on some of the hurdles facing students who are in households where English is a second language. 

Many families with children learning at home are able to easily stand in and help them adjust and assist with questions related to their studies, Weimer noted. However, about 50 percent of the Christel House Indianapolis students live in households where the adults don’t speak English or who don’t engage with computers on a day-to-day basis.

“When they’re trying to help their child navigate assignments or instructions, there’s a language barrier,” Weimer said. “We need to do a better job of paying attention to low-income households, communities of color, immigrants so that we can do a better job of outreach, equitable practices and equitable access.”

May 21

Children’s Commission gains a foothold

By Legislation

By Lynn Sygiel, editor, Charitable Advisors

Indiana, like most states in the country, has no shortage of vulnerable, at-risk children. Indiana’s kids, however, may be more fortunate than others in that they have friends in high places.

The state’s Supreme Court Chief Justice Loretta Rush and state Sen. Travis Holdman (R-Markle) have been strong advocates for Indiana’s children for a large portion of their time in public service. Both have spent significant time at the grassroots level learning about issues affecting this population.

For Rush, it included volunteering in the 1980s as a Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA), making recommendations to a judge on behalf of neglected or abused children, and as a judge, visiting the institutions where she would sentence young people. Holdman has been associated with Child Protection Services in Indiana for over 40 years.

Five years ago, they worked in concert to affect state-level change. They advocated and tenaciously supported the creation of the Commission on Improving the Status of Children in Indiana. Holdman saw a need and sponsored the legislation and said Rush and others worked doggedly to support the effort. Both believed there needed to be regular attention paid to improving the status of children.

 

[content_box box_type=”normal”]

Information sharing guide

This mobile-friendly guide summarizes how specific types of information about children and families can be shared between professionals, which parties can share this information, and who can receive the information. Visit the mobile app

href="#" data-color-override="false" data-hover-color-override="false" data-hover-text-color-override="#fff">Button Text

[/content_box]

 

“There were so many different entities that touch children, but there was no coordination between the entities. When we did research for the children’s commission, we found 31 committees or commissions on the record books dealing with children and child-related issues,” said Rush who has served as chief justice since 2014. Over a year, they did a global overview and determined that a children’s commission could pull all these entities together.

Although Holdman said there was no one incident that led to the commission’s creation, the overarching reason was that with the many parts and pieces and different agencies, it often resulted in duplication of services and payment.

Established by Senate Bill 125 in 2013, the 18-member commission includes leaders from the executive, legislative and judicial branches of state government, but more importantly, its positions are specifically named in the statute. Five members form the executive committee and the commission chairmanship rotates among the three branches of government.

Holdman said from the start they were adamant that the leader of a division be the representative.

“Bill drafters wanted to add ‘designee.’ We said, ‘No, we’re not going to put that language in because they will never come to a meeting, if we do that.’ The commissioner of health, the superintendent of public instruction, and the attorney general, all of those leaders need to be personally involved so that we get their attention, and they help determine how to resolve issues for children.

“I think having all three branches is what makes it unique from other states,” said Holdman who rotated off the commission and was replaced by Sen. Erin Houchin (R-Salem). Not all states have commissions, and Indiana’s was scheduled to sunset in 2019. That, however, was changed to 2029 in the most recent legislative session.

Last September, Julie Whitman became the commission’s first full-time executive director. Previously she was Indiana Youth Institute’s (IYI) vice president of Statewide Engagement and Advocacy, and also served as a co-chairperson for the commission’s data sharing and mapping committee.

At the commission’s inception, Rush said that data-gathering was among the most important things it would do. And Whitman is well poised to help make that happen. For the past 24 years, one of IYI’s annual publications has been the KIDS COUNT data book, which provides easily accessible, reliable data regarding childhood well-being in five categories: families and communities, economy, education, health and safety. Whitman believes the commission takes it one step further.

“I think that the commission picks up where KIDS COUNT leaves off, in the sense that the data book gives a general picture of the state. Then these guys are tasked with researching, ‘OK, now what do we do about it? What are other states doing about it?’ So they’re doing a different type of research. Really looking at interventions and best practices and policies,” she said.

One of the first important tasks that the commission did, Holdman said, was to build an inventory of all the services around the state. It helped the commission learn where the gaps and holes in services were geographically.

The commission has also been able to raise the visibility of issues, like infant mortality.

“We brought that to light, got Governor Pence’s attention and the state held the first infant mortality symposium. So as much as anything, it’s not doing the work itself, but bringing the issues to light for the public to be aware of it. Folks in a lot of different communities have stepped up to the plate to address the issue locally,” said the senator who has represented his district since 2008.

Rush said a tangential effect is collaboration.

“You have people who have never sat around the table who are dealing with state-wide policies who have never communicated with each other. When you get different people who care, it’s really interesting to see how these partners help,” she said.

At the start, the commission met quarterly for four hours. When Whitman came on board, she did a listening tour. The majority mentioned the length of meetings. Now the group meets more frequently — six times a year for two hours. Meetings are held from 10 a.m. to noon on the third Wednesday of each month.

And they have made progress.

The commission is not doing this work in isolation. Four task forces provide insight and expertise, each representing one priority of the strategic plan — Child Safety and Services, Educational Outcomes, Mental Health and Substance Abuse and Juvenile Justice and Cross-system Youth.

“None of the commission members sit on the task forces. Altogether under the Children’s Commission umbrella, we have about 150 people working on issues, and that includes the commission members themselves,” said Whitman. The committees include individuals from both government agencies and nonprofit leaders. About 30 to 40 percent are non-governmental employees.

“The commission has really said to these task forces, ‘You are the subject matter experts, bring us your recommendations, we want to take action and create policies that really are driven by what works in the field,’” said Whitman.

“Even though they’re volunteers, they’ve agreed to do this work and hold each other accountable. We’ve started a process where every task force reports out at every commission meeting, so I think this helps them just stay invested in the work and really make sure these objectives are moving forward,” she said.

When the task force is ready to bring a recommendation to the commission, it asks to be placed on the commission’s agenda. At the commission meeting, there is a hearing that includes discussion and questions.

Whitman provided two concrete accomplishments since the fall.

One identified need was additional mental health therapists and counselors. The Mental Health and Substance Abuse Task Force was charged with researching what could be done at the state level to increase the available number. A subcommittee discovered a specific barrier to state licensing: Indiana law has an internship requirement of 1,000 hours, whereas most nationally accredited programs require only 700.

So the committee offered a recommendation to change that requirement, which was approved unanimously, and according to Whitman, also came up with an innovation.

“Once an individual has an initial clinical license, he or she has to have hours of supervision from a person with the same type of licensing. In rural areas, especially, it can be a challenge to find a supervisor who has a specialization to get the required hours of face-to-face supervision,” she said.

So the task force recommended that 50 percent of those hours be virtual to ease the burden.

Both recommendations were approved unanimously. That particular task force is chaired by Sen. Randall Head (R-Logansport), and he filed that bill with the Indiana General Assembly that made it all the way through.

“I thought that was a pretty exciting win for this past year,” said Whitman.

Another example was from the Child Safety and Services Task Force. One of its objectives is addressing teen suicide in Indiana. That task force researched Zero Suicide Academy, which is a policy approach and designed specifically for hospital emergency departments and community mental health centers to make sure that the safety net has no holes and that those contemplating suicide don’t fall through the cracks.

“After completing the research, the task force recommended that the commission endorse the academy. WFYI was at the commission meeting and broadcast a segment. There was greater public awareness. I was able to reach out to the head of the hospital association and say, ‘Hey, the Children’s Commission has just approved this, can you get this information out to your hospital members?” And he was very happy to do so. And that kind of power of collaboration and just raising awareness sometimes, can get an initiative a little further than maybe it would have gotten otherwise,” said Whitman.

Diverse perspectives can help clarification language. Recently at a meeting, there was a discussion about the words “wrap-around services.”

“Some folks who are steeped in the mental health field said ‘wrap-around’ has a very particular meaning within the mental health world, which we think actually is not what was meant here. We think it’s actually school-based services. So they re-worded that objective, and the commission said fine,” said Whitman.

“I think there’s a kind of deference and respect in both directions between the commission and the task forces, so when those subject matter experts come and say, ‘We just wanted to clarify and make sure this was your intent,’ the commission has a great respect for the expertise in those groups.”

So what’s next? Whitman said that the commission is waiting for the Department of Child Services assessment report in June and assumes it will affect what the commission is doing.

“I’m not sure we’re where we need to be, but at least we have a framework in place that we can use to monitor what’s going on to get a better handle on it,” said Holdman.

Whitman said she would love the state to get to a point where we have an overall vulnerable youth dashboard, children’s budget or fiscal map and match them up.
“Ultimately we need to say, ‘What’s the return on investment? What are we doing as a state for kids? Is it as effective as it can be? Is it as efficient as it can be?”