Recommendations for the Wellbeing of Families of Color and American Indian Families in Minnesota

This Voices and Choices for Children Coalition report, is the first step in a pre-planning process to engage communities of color and American Indian communities across the state in developing an agenda that will help shape the policies and practices affecting their children, prenatal to grade 3.  The purpose of this report and literature review is help to inform specific recommendations for policies and practice, including a legislative agenda, which are supported by a broad coalition of communities of color and American Indian communities.  It will also inform a strategic roadmap for ensuring that the voices of communities of color and American Indian communities are consistently heard, and that steps are taken to align human and financial supports across agencies to promote healthy child development.   

Culturally rooted organizations and institutions that serve communities of color and American Indian communities have produced both new knowledge and effective practices.  However, their work has not been sufficiently utilized to shape the policies and practices that most affect the well-being of children of color and American Indian children and their families.  Distressing statistics attest to the results of this omission.  The purpose of this report and literature review is to highlight some of the work generated by organizations, researchers, institutions and agencies rooted in these cultural communities whose voices have been overlooked. Most of these publications are not found in bibliographies and data bases.  In Minnesota communities of color and tribal nations, nonprofit organizations and agencies have developed many innovative learning models, anecdotal stories of success, and a long history of effective approaches to early care and education under the most difficult circumstances. 

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Voices and Choices for Children Coalition Glossary of Terms

Words hold incredible power and often mean many different things to many different people. The terms and definitions in the glossary below have been highlighted by the Voices and Choices for Children Coalition as commonly used terms that have consistently risen throughout our work in advancing and advocating for more equitable outcomes for children of color and American Indian children. We believe that it is essential to the success of our efforts to strive towards clarity and a shared understanding of these terms and ideas.