Community Resource Sharing Newsletter

Roberta Miksch, CFP Director

Shift Happens

Shopping in a store recently I heard a mom talking to her two children, maybe 5 and 8

years old. They were both shopping with mom and I have to tell you, I ended up

following them at a distance for a bit with my own cart just to see what I would hear the

mom say next.

At one point the older of the two kids found something on the shelf they wanted to

spend their own money on. The mom said, ‘when you buy something, make sure you

love it, don’t buy it if you don’t love it.’Sage advice, huh? The child listened and a short

conversation between them followed.

By this time, I was intrigued and decided I wanted to hear more about what the conversation between the mom and her children looked like. So, I did what anyone wanting to hear more might do… I followed them… far enough behind but close enough to hear their conversation.

At one point the younger child, a girl, was hurt by something the mom inadvertently said or did. The mom quickly lifted the child up and placed them in the cart, so they were eye to eye. Mom proceeded to tell the girl, “I am so sorry for making you feel that way, which was not my intent.’ They conversed a bit more and then hugged before shopping continued.

I could not help but bring my cart next to theirs after that and tell the mom that she was doing a great job communicating with her children and helping them feel valued. She thanked me and I went on ahead of her.

I would like to think that was an example of what it means to be on the front end of our prevention work. Including the time I followed them, this interaction took maybe 3-4 minutes. I would like to think that this is an example of building a culture in our community of mandatory supporting of our families. We can support parents in many ways.

You may have better examples of supporting a parent, and if so, please share.

Together, let’s shift to mandatory supporting of our families.

Tammy Bichlmeier,

Central Navigator

Community Prevention Utilizing Findhelp

For about the past year, Community & Family Partnership and all community collaboratives in the state that are supported by the Nebraska Children & Families Foundation have been educated on and have been using the Findhelp platform for our internal client database and to log referrals for services. Its website provides this overview: “Building healthier and happier

communities starts with supporting the whole person. That’s why Findhelp was founded in 2010: to connect all people in need to the programs that serve them with dignity and ease. Our software platform enables community organizations, governments, healthcare organizations, and businesses across industries to easily manage and coordinate care.”

Although switching over to a new data collection tool is never easy, the Community Prevention

staff are beginning to see the potential of Findhelp to better record the assistance provided to

families by our Family Coaches and Central Navigators. It can also be utilized as a tool to keep

all notes and documentation in one spot for our staff. But for the system to be even more

effective, having our partners in the community have accounts and using Findhelp for incoming

and outgoing referrals will be key. I invite you to discover more about it at www.findhelp.org.

6 Regions, One Nebraska

According to opportunity.nebraska.gov, in 2024, the 6 Regions, One Nebraska initiative was created to allow separate regions in Nebraska to make focused, data-driven decisions and to select a project they feel will positively impact the future of their local community. Each of the six regions received an initial financial investment, matched by private dollars, to establish a team in their region will receive financial incentive for initial regional projects in Resident Recruitment, Youth Engagement, Entrepreneurship, Technology, Infrastructure or a selected regional project.

Our region has decided to focus their project on increasing the number of child care professionals in our area. Equitable Early Childcare and Education is a current priority area of Community and Family Partnership, and we are eager to explore what this means for our local counties. Right now, a $2,500 stipend is being offered for those who wish to become an in-home child care professional. Becoming a child care professional gives you the ability to work from home in an industry that is always needed. There are experienced mentors available to help and grant funding available. Child care professionals are the workforce behind the workforce and are vital for our communities and economy to thrive.

Please see the flyer for additional information.

CHIP - Food Access Initiative: A Community-Driven Approach

We are taking on food insecurity across Boone, Colfax, Platte, and Nance counties with

one clear goal: ensuring everyone, especially our youth and seniors, has access to

healthy, nutritious food. We’re not just handing out meals; we’re rescuing food, building

partnerships, and finding grants to make sure no one goes hungry. Here’s how we’re

making it happen:

School Focused:

Food Program Inventory: Sent surveys to schools to map out all available food

access programs and identify gaps (think Summer Lunch and Weekend Food

Backpacks).

Grants for Rural Schools: We’re on the lookout for funding to bring more food

access to rural schools.

Advocating for Change: We will be advocating for better funding to support

school meal programs.

Food Rescue Focused:

Connect with Producers: Our team is reaching out to local farmers to rescue

unsellable produce.

Pickup Schedule: We’re planning food pickups from June to September 2025 to

get rescued food to those in need.

Bigger Trailer Needed: We’ve secured a single-axle trailer, but we’re aiming for

a double-axle to haul even more food!

Senior Focused:

Update Food Matrix: Created a list of food resources for seniors, and now we

are updating it to make sure it’s accurate and complete.

Senior Commodities: Partnering with Central NE Community Action to get

seniors access to the Commodities Program.

SNAP Benefits: Crafting strategies to make SNAP benefits more accessible for

seniors.

We have an incredible community task force, but there’s always room for more helping

hands! This is a team effort, and we’d love for YOU to be a part of it. Reach out to Hope

Freshour at hfreshour@columbusunitedway.com to join the food-tastic movement—because together, we’ve got this!

2024-2026 Action Plan: Access to Childcare in

East Central District Health Department

If you were planning to take a trip out of the country to a place you’d never been before, you’d

want to use our time and money well and be the best prepared you could be for the trip, right?

Chances are good that you might connect with a person who has already traveled there to hear

what their experience was like in that country. That would be a person with lived experience!

What does this have to do with Access to Childcare?!

Well, as of March, we now have 16 licensed childcare providers…lived experience people….in

our service area who have joined our Access to Childcare team! These providers give us insight into how we might engage other providers, elevate the profession and bring us awareness of related topics we may want to include in our workplan.

We continue working on the strategies identified for the 2024-2026 Access to Childcare work-plan. One of these strategies was to survey licensed childcare providers to see if they’d like

to join us for meetings and what day of the week and time worked best for them to meet. It turns

out that afternoon nap was an ideal time for them to join our team meetings thus we shifted our

meeting time from 10-11 am to 1:15 – 2:15 p.m. so they could join us.

By including childcare providers in our meetings, we are learning from them about their profession and what topics need to be lifted in our communities as we promote and elevate the

profession.

We’re thrilled to have providers at our meetings and love the wisdom and experience they bring.

The workforce behind the workforce.

That’s quality childcare providers and educators.

If you’d like to join our meetings which are held by Zoom the third Monday of the month from

1:15 – 2:15 p.m. contact Roberta at rmiksch@columbusunitedway.com