Cabinet secretary touts early education during visit to Pablo college
Sylvia Burwell, secretary of Health and Human Services in the Obama administration, visited Pablo on Tuesday to promote the importance of early education.
On her first visit to Montana, Burwell met in a roundtable at Salish and Kootenai College with members of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes to discuss the Tribal Early Learning Initiative.
The tribes just received their second grant under the program. The current grant of $100,000 was just announced.
A smaller grant was received in 2012. The Salish and Kootenai and the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma were the only repeat recipients.
Other recipients of $100,000 grants in this round were the Cherokee Nation, the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians, the Inter-Tribal Council of Michigan and the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa.
The program offers assistance for programs such as Head Start, Early Head Start, and tribal child care, as well as tribal maternal, infant and early childhood home visits.
Linda Smith, deputy assistant secretary for early childhood development, joined Burwell in Pablo and explained that she was born and raised on the Flathead Reservation and had volunteered in one of the first Head Start programs on the reservation.
“I saw first-hand the great needs in my community, and the great influence that a little extra support for children and families could have. Those experiences have stayed with me all my life and influence my work today,” Smith said.
“High-quality early childhood development programs have the potential to ensure that our youngest learners enter school healthy, prepared to excel, and with a love of learning — and that can transform a community.”
Andrea Helling, communications director for Health and Human Services, said the earlier grant has helped the tribes develop a variety of tools to assist early learning, including training, data management, and parental education.
The roundtable event took place at the Salish and Kootenai College’s administrative building.