Child Care Aware Kentucky has done amazing work in the state – and people are taking notice.
Kentucky’s Child Care Aware region was recently highlighted at a national meeting for the Child Care Aware of America Leadership Institute in Salt Lake City. During a seminar on community collaboration during emergency situations, Kentucky’s chapter was specifically noted, alongside Hawaii’s, for excellent leadership during a crisis scenario. Angela Cooper and Bethany Davis, who are the regional directors for the Cumberland Region and the Lakes Region respectively, were in the audience at the time.
“Kentucky, over the last few years, has had a few emergency events. The tornadoes in western Kentucky, which is the area Bethany, represents and works in, and then also, the floods of eastern Kentucky, which are also included in my region,” Cooper said. “While I was in attendance in that session, they brought Kentucky to the forefront on how well, we worked with external partners.”
During both events, Cooper noted that Child Care Aware helped ensure that lines of communication between various childcare agencies remained intact even as phones and other methods of contact failed. Social media, Cooper said, was a fantastic tool for keeping people in conversation with one another even in those circumstances.
“They were reaching out to staff, they were reaching out to providers,” she said. “They just wanted to make sure, first and foremost that everyone was okay, and then start assessing the damage that may have occurred within the region.”
This not only ensured that people stayed in open communication with one another, but allowed new relationships to be forged. Through this, Child Care Aware also gained access to information about the afflicted regions and allowed for better organization of childcare resources.
“Prior to us working with these external partners, school systems and other agencies were on the radar of the partners, but individual child cares perhaps were not,” Cooper said.
This earned her and her colleagues a commendation on a national stage. Cooper noted that though these were sad times for the state and its people, she was grateful to be able to help to such a significant degree. She remembers being in the room when they asked if anyone there was a representative for Hawaii or Kentucky.
“I raised my hand and they said, ‘We would just like to commend you for your state, your child care resource center referral agency for the work you’ve done in times of emergency and disaster events, for the work that was completed in western and eastern Kentucky,’ and asked if I would like to tell them a little bit about what we had done and, talk a little bit about partnerships,” Cooper said. “It was just wonderful to get that recognition…that we were seen as a good example of how to collaborate.”
