Family, Friend, and Neighbor: Sharing the Wisdom Project
Sharing the Wisdom is an extension of the Family, Friend, and Neighbor Grant Evaluation Project (FFN). The FFN Grant Project, overseen by the Minnesota Department of Human Services, allocated state funds to help programs better serve family, friend, and neighbor child care providers. Six programs throughout Minnesota were funded to provide resources for FFN providers. Three programs in the metro area and three programs in Greater Minnesota worked with FFN providers through a series of home visits, community outreach events, and other awareness raising activities to provide support to FFN providers caring for young children and to teach them about child development and various school-readiness activities. CEED is the evaluator for the FFN Grant Evaluation Program.
Sharing the Wisdom aims to further evaluate FFN providers' experiences with these projects and focuses on the largest group of FFN providers: Grandmothers.
Sharing the Wisdom is an extension of the original evaluation, this time examining more closely what caregivers learned throughout their experience in one of the six FFN projects. Sharing the Wisdom enrolled about 30 grandmothers into the evaluation. The research is qualitative--information gathered from grandmothers is through the course of an oral interview or a focus group. Efforts were made to enroll grandmothers from all ethnic and linguistic backgrounds and translators were used when necessary.
Related Resource
Susman-Stillman, A., & Cleveland, J. (2010).
Sharing the Wisdom: Experiences of Grandparents
Participating in Family, Friend and Neighbor Education and
Support Programs. Presented at the Head Start Research
Conference, Paper Symposium, Unpacking the impact of support
programs for home-based child care providers.
Project Staff
Amy Susman-Stillman, Principal Investigator
Susan Walker, Faculty and Consultant Associate Professor, Department of Curriculum & Instruction
Jennifer Cleveland, Project Coordinator
Funding
Funding for Sharing the Wisdom was provided by a grant from the McKnight Foundation. The funding period was December 2008 to December 2010.