Success in 2025

During our collaborative meeting in December, we discussed some of our successes from CFP in 2025. Here’s a recap!

• Food Access – Lots of work done to provide food and distribute in our four-counties.
• Collaboration – 2025 brought numerous opportunities to work together! New relationships were created to reach even farther into our four-county area.
• Mental Health – Continued efforts to increase awareness of mental health supports.
• Child Care – More support was provided for our licensed child care providers and centers.
• Find Help – Another great resource was added for our communities.
• Community Partners – Continued involvement from organizations and community partners, such as local police departments and city leaders.

2025 was a great year for CFP because of our collaborative efforts. Thank you to everybody involved in this work and know that we appreciate and see all the things that you are doing. Here’s to continued cooperation in 2026! 

We had another group of 12 providers go through an 8-week class session of Circle of Security in the Classroom. All are Introduction Year Providers through Rooted. Thank you, Jeni Snyder, for another successful class.

Six leaders of our Rooted Community, presented at the first Midwest Pyramid Model Summit at Northern Illinois University this month, where they promoted positive social and emotional development in young children. The conference had 400 in attendance and the presenters presented the following:



Cheryl Drozd, RiR Coordinator and Kelly Lovell, Preschool Teacher at Saint Bonaventure, presented “Teaching Feelings and Behavior Through Daily Encounters: A Day with Mrs. Drozd.”

Shelby Czarnick, our licensed therapist with Essential Life Tools, presented two workshops.

“The Pyramid Model, reinvented: For Therapy Rooms, Living Rooms and Programs”, and “The Pyramid Model, Reimagined for ADHD, Autism and Beyond.”

Lynn Vollbracht, our Lead Coach and Makayla Kumpf, Christ Lutherans’ Child Care Assistant Director and RiR Coach, presented “Parents, Let’s Not Just Involve Them, Let’s Engage Them.”

Shannon Stuzman, a Home Childcare Provider and RiR Coach, presented with Christen Million, MS, with Nebraska Children and Families Foundation. They presented “Pioneering Pyramid Model Implementation in Family Child Care Homes: Nebraska’s Story.”

December 1^st is our Collaboration Christmas Party with all three Cohorts!

Community Prevention (CP) Utilizing Standards of Quality

On December 9 and 10, CP’s Central Navigation staff will be attending a newly developed training for Community Prevention projects and other support programs across the State based on the “Standards of Quality for Family Strengthening and Support” guidelines developed by the National Family Support Network. This organization states that “the development of shared standards is an important strategic step for the Family Strengthening and Support field, putting it in the same league with other related fields that have standards and have used it effectively."

There are five main sections for these Standards, which are: 1. Family Centeredness; Family Strengthening; Diversity, Equity & Inclusion; Community Strengthening; and Evaluation. Our CP staff will be learning about the standards in each section and best practices for achieving them along with quality indicators. One example is meeting a standard that all program services are accessible and convenient with a quality indicator being that the program has flexible operating hours to align with participant’s schedules and possibly virtual services that are easy to access.  We look forward to new ideas on how we may better serve families!

Food Access Resources

One word that we like to use to describe ourselves is "connectors." We connect people to resources, to help, to others that can help. With the rising food insecurity needs, a food matrix was created that has resources, as well as information regarding 2-1-1 and Find Help to connect participants to the resources they need. Please find these items below.

Ready to be a changemaker for families? Join the Bring Up Nebraska Network! 

Bring Up Nebraska is a call to action to help families thrive and is supported by Nebraska Children and Families Foundation. Bring Up Nebraska is focused on prevention and strengthening families BEFORE crisis to empower them within their communities. It is about uniting those with shared agendas, implementing systems and providing evidence-based training to support meaningful opportunities and creating partnerships. 

Helping families thrive and focusing on preventive efforts is a priority area of Community and Family Partnership and more voices are needed. The more people involved in the shared mission of improving the quality of life for young people and families, the more impact we can have. Let’s do this together. See more information in the flyer below or visit BringUpNebraska.org.

Have you visited the Schuyler Community Book Garden??

Check it out!

LB304 is a bill that makes permanent the current income eligibility requirements for child care assistance. Without this bill, eligibility for child care assistance will be reduced in 2026, which will significantly impact thousands of families in Nebraska.

What can YOU do?

1) Learn more about the bill and stay informed

2) Share information about this bill - the more people who know about it, the better!

3) Reach out to your state senators and other government officials

Like what you see? Want to share the news?

Download your own copies of these flyers by clicking on the picture!