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Tribal Child Care Technical Assistance Center (TriTAC)
Effective Program Strategies

Provider Training Bristol Bay Native Association

Demographic Information:
The Bristol Bay region of southwest Alaska covers 40,000 square miles. Yup’ik, Aleut, Alutiiq, Athabascan, Scandinavian, Japanese, and many other peoples have settled in this area, drawn by the abundant subsistence harvests and, more recently, by commercial salmon fisheries. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, difficulties in the local salmon industry have caused severe economic hardship in the region.

The Bristol Bay Native Association (BBNA) is a community and social service agency that serves the region’s diverse native people. Like other agencies serving the region, BBNA is headquartered in the small hub city of Dillingham, 327 miles southwest of Anchorage. Dillingham is also the site of the region’s only child care center (co-located with the Head Start center).

Transportation is an enormous challenge in delivering services in this part of Alaska. BBNA’s service area is very rural, and all but one of the service area’s 31 villages are accessible only by boat or plane.

Type of Program:
BBNA operates a child care certificate program that serves 90 children and 43 families in the full variety of care settings. The majority of child care in the region is provided by family child care providers. BBNA’s CCDF program, which is operated under a P.L. 102-477 consolidation plan, has approximately 43 registered providers and an equal or greater number of back-up care providers.

Effective Program Strategy:
BBNA’s Annual Early Childhood Child Care Providers Conference offers a unique opportunity for child care providers in the region to meet and network with one another, learn about effective child care practices, and sharpen their skills. The annual training event is hosted by BBNA’s Workforce Development (CCDF) and Head Start divisions in cooperation with the Bristol Bay Area Health Corporation and the Dillingham Health Center. AnnaMae Miller, Workforce Development Deputy Director, and Teresa Brant, Child Care Coordinator, take the lead on coordinating the conference logistics. During the months prior to the conference, they meet with their partnering organizations weekly to plan the conference logistics and content.

Almost 90 Head Start and child care providers attended the first annual conference in 2002; approximately 80 people attended in 2003. To ensure maximum attendance by all providers regardless of income, BBNA pays to fly providers from their villages to the conference site and also covers lodging expenses and per diem. The conference lasts 3-4 days, usually covering at least one weekend day to lessen the impact on weekday child care program operations.

Participants can receive credit for conference attendance through the University of Alaska – Bristol Bay Campus; workshops also count toward state licensing requirements. Conference session topics include CPR, early brain development, food safety, behavioral management, language and literacy, fetal alcohol syndrome, math activities, traditional storytelling, mental health, play, and music and movement. While most workshops are presented by staff of the sponsoring organizations, non-local presenters are brought in to give the keynote address and to conduct other sessions. At the 2003 conference, the keynote speaker was nationally known singer-songwriter/educator Peter Alsop, who has a Ph.D. in educational psychology; Alsop led several plenary sessions and gave a family concert at the local elementary school.

The conference highlights the talents of young children in the region each year by selecting a conference logo created by a child. A contest is held among children in Head Start, child care, and elementary school. The child whose design is chosen receives a conference tote bag and poster featuring her/his design and is recognized at the conference’s opening dinner.

Resources:
The primary sources of funds for the first two annual conferences were CCDF quality set-aside funds and Head Start training dollars. Funds from Bristol Bay’s Early Learning Opportunities Act (ELOA) grant and other BBNA funds were also used to supplement the training dollars. The use of agency staff to coordinate the event and conduct most of the trainings means that the training funds can be targeted toward travel, lodging, meals, and conference materials.

Results:
Because the region’s child care providers are so geographically isolated, the annual conference provides a crucial opportunity for providers to meet one another and share information. Feedback received from participants through conference evaluations and informal communications indicate that providers enjoyed the trainings; there is anecdotal evidence that the quality of care has improved for children in the community. The conference has been so well-received that presenters now call BBNA to ask for the opportunity to participate.

After the first conference, Ms. Miller was asked to do a workshop for the annual BIA providers conference on how to put together a conference like this. She shared this information with communities from all over Alaska, and was subsequently asked to host a site visit from the staff of another regional non-profit child care program so that they could learn more about how Ms. Miller and her colleagues organized their conference. Providers from this agency’s child care program will be invited to future BBNA conferences if space permits.

Lessons Learned:
BBNA and its partners continue to fine tune the training conference format and agenda to build upon previous years’ efforts. Some of the lessons learned from the first two years of sponsoring the training include the following:

• Make participation mandatory for all registered/contracted providers so that everyone gets the same minimum training.
• Ensure that participant supports and amenities are actually needed before expending the resources to provide them. For example, child care was offered during the first annual conference, but no providers made use of it. Also, evening activities provided during the first conference were discarded in the second year due to complaints from participants about the length of the training day.
• Don’t take on more of the administrative duties than are necessary or than your staff can handle. For the first conference, BBNA staff made all travel and lodging arrangements for participants; during the second year, the staff workload was reduced by having participants make their own lodging arrangements.
• Meet with the planning team soon after one conference to begin planning the next. Use input from planners, presenters, and participant evaluations to guide the process.
• Use your program’s policies and procedures as a framework for choosing training topics.

One of the most important lessons that the BBNA planners learned was that you don’t have to be a professional meeting planner to coordinate a successful training conference for your providers. While some of the Head Start managers had experience setting up annual training sessions and workshops, none of the planners had experience planning a conference of this size and scope. By relying on the skills of the planning team, lessons learned by attending other conferences, and a trial-and-error approach that builds on the results of previous conferences, BBNA has developed a system for conducting annual training conferences that meet the needs of their community’s child care and Head Start providers.

Contact Information:
AnnaMae Miller
Workforce Development Deputy Director
And
Theresa Brant
Child Care Coordinator
Bristol Bay Native Association
P.O. Box 310
Dillingham, AK 99576
Phone: 907-842-2262
Fax: 907-842-3498
E-mail: amiller@bbna.com
E-mail: tbrant@bbna.com

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This page was last updated September 24, 2004.