Whatever befalls the earth, befalls the children of the earth.
-Chief Seattle
Previous blog posts in this series have described evidence use as a means to support policy and programs serving children and families. They have highlighted the importance of research practice partnerships and their key members in building evidence and supporting its use. Program design, implementation, and evaluation can be better supported through knowledge exchanges that break down traditional knowledge hierarchies (Grindell et al., 2022 ) by embracing collaborative approaches or "co-creation” of evidence in partnership with communities. Evidence use in policy and programs serving children and families is strengthened when that evidence is developed or co-created through partnerships with the intended community served by a program, for example, through Research practice policy (RPP) partnerships or brokers, intermediaries, and boundary spanners. RPP partnerships can work to reduce inequities for communities, and OPRE has explored the dynamics of these partnerships in relation to evidence-based decision making.
However, for over 500 federally-recognized tribal communities in the United States, terms like “evidence-based decision making” and “co-creation of evidence” take on a different meaning. American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) communities and families have faced ineffective and often damaging consequences of federal decision-making, such as overwhelming rates of dispossession of Native lands , forced removal and mistreatment of Native children , and harmful research relationships with Native communities . In addition, US federal policy has repeatedly left out Native perspectives and needs in its programming and evaluation. Programs impacting AIAN children, families, and communities have historically followed a similar pattern. ACF evaluations of child programs such as Head Start often excluded tribes in the development, use, and dissemination of data relevant to their needs, making it difficult for Native communities to use or benefit from this information.
Today, the call to include Native voices in the “co-creation” of evidence and evidence-based programming is louder than ever before — but is it being heard?
Despite the historical traumas and the severe lack of representation in evidence-based policy and programming related to children and families, AIAN communities continue to be resilient and thriving. They continue to advocate for their representation and partnership throughout the process of evidence-based decision making, leading to significant progress in the development of data and other research-based programming supports with input from Native members and partners. OPRE’s Roadmap for work with Indigenous Communities demonstrates how this type of co-creation can and should look, and the benefits of this approach for Native children and families in combatting generations of inequities.
The Office of Head Start (OHS) funds over 150 AIAN tribal Head Start programs under Region XI, gains many benefits from the Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES). FACES is a nationally representative study collecting information on the characteristics, experiences, and development of Head Start children and families, programs, and the staff who serve them. Since the beginning of FACES in 1997, Region XI Head Start programs lacked data specific to the unique culture, language, and history of AIAN communities. Region XI Head Start program directors and their partners advocated for separate, disaggregated data relevant to the unique culture, language, and history of AIAN communities, in order to better inform their decision-making at the program level.
In 2015, after years of advocacy efforts from tribal leaders, researchers, and federal ACF policymakers, AIAN FACES was established , with the support of 22 tribal programs. Since then, AIAN FACES has practiced “co-creation of evidence” and its use, through partnerships with Native communities. For those involved in the development of the study, it was crucial to make this work useful for its intended communities. That meant incorporating data sovereignty, indigenous ways of knowing, cultural and scientific rigor, and community-based approaches into every aspect of the design and evaluation. This co-creation was informed by AIAN community members, with their partnership, for their use.
The resulting studies are informed by principles of tribal participatory research, and have had consistent engagement with the AIAN FACES Workgroup , which includes Head Start Program Directors, researchers, and OHS Region XI policymakers who engage in all planning and implementation stages of the study. Importantly, this meaningful source of data is owned by the tribes themselves, reflecting a value of tribal sovereignty for data ownership and co-creation. The Workgroup encouraged OPRE to archive the data for future use, along with review and approval processes for data access. This archival process allows those working with tribal programs to further explore additional questions important to their communities that could not be answered with any other data set.
“It really drove our need to focus more on cultural curricula.”
- Jacki Haight, Region XI Head Start Director
This ongoing co-creating offers additional insights into the utility of AIAN FACES data. Through this series of recently released videos , we can explore how the data was created and is used by various groups - including Head Start Program Directors, researchers, and OHS Region XI staff - for a variety of purposes. Program Directors have reported using this data for sharing information with their tribal leaders, informing Head Start program goals, and supporting local community services. Researchers interested in secondary analysis of the data can answer questions about child and family outcomes relevant to their programs and program partners. Region XI OHS staff, who participate in regular planning and dissemination efforts in partnership with OPRE, report using the data to make informed decisions regarding the guidance and technical assistance offered to programs.
“[We use] the data to ensure that we are providing support in a way that is responsive to the needs of the Head Start community.”
-Todd Lertjuntharangool, Region XI Program Manager, OHS
AIAN FACES is an example of the co-creation of evidence use to support programs serving Native communities. The establishment of these partnerships is crucial to ensure that the data collected under AIAN FACES is co-created with AIAN communities, with input by members of the community, and for use by AIAN programs themselves. The partnership helps to create a foundation of trust that serves as an initial but important first step in repairing the relationships between indigenous communities and federal human service programs due to the historical trauma experienced by AIAN communities. Of course, the co-creation of evidence and its use will not undo hundreds of years of injustice against tribes, nor will it eliminate the issues faced by Native communities today. After generations of policies and programs aimed at eradicating indigenous culture, current programs serving AIAN children and families today should be better informed by evidence-based practices that are developed with, by, and for AIAN communities in mind. We hope that this one, small example of evidence use — created with, by, and for the people intended to be served by Region XI Head Start programs - can set us on a path towards healing and respectful collaboration in support of children and families.