In Fiscal Year 2016, ANA offered funds for community-based projects to build upon the successes of ANA’s short-term project-based Native Language funding, under the Native Language Community Coordination (NLCC) initiative. This funding was intended as a place-based demonstration to address gaps in a community’s coordination of Native language programming across the educational continuum from birth to higher education. Learn more about the current NLCC grantees here. You can find more information on the NLCC cohort here .
Native Language Community Coordination Demonstration Project 2016
The proposed Native Language Community Coordination Demonstration Project will build upon the successes of the Administration for Native Americans’ short-term project-based funding. This initiative is an important way to support community capacity building. These educational systems development projects will ensure high quality language instruction, appropriate and culturally responsive curricula, professional development, and additional services and supports are aligned, implemented, and evaluated to create a seamless path for Native language acquisition across generations for educational and economic success.
Purpose: In the past, ANA and ACF have heard that it is difficult to coordinate standalone language programs into the broader educational system. The Demonstration Project will address gaps in community coordination and bring together key drivers of program effectiveness: strong community ties, integrated language/educational services, support services and interventions tailored to the specific community, high performing collaborations, and committed leaders and community champions.
Funding: ANA envisions funding four (4) communities, with funding also being used to support technical assistance and evaluation.
- What level of funding do you see as needed to support an initiative of this scope at the community level? (NL grants currently have a ceiling of $300,000 per year)
- What type of technical assistance would be needed by potential applicants pre award and post award? In what areas would potential applicants need technical assistance to develop plans for this work? For example, would tribal communities be interested in receiving assistance with conducting a needs assessment, mapping resources, collecting and analyzing data, forming governance structures for partnerships, or other needs?
Eligibility: ANA proposes to select participants in the Initiative from communities that already have a current Tribal Head Start or Child Care Center and a Tribal College or University to ensure that both early childhood education and higher education settings are connected to the project. Applicants will go through a peer panel review process utilized as is the case in all ANA grant competitions.
Questions asked for consultation:
- Should eligibility be restricted to communities with ACF-funded early childhood programs?
- Should eligibility be restricted to communities with a tribal college or be broader to include some other designation, such as a Native Serving Institute of Higher Education (IHEs serving 10% or more AIANNHPI students)?
- What considerations should ANA make when considering the ability of the applicant to coordinate with various levels of educational institutions, for example, past partnerships, letters of support for the proposed project and/or formal memorandums of agreement?
Goals: This Initiative is specifically intended to build an evidence base for intentional place-based strategies that promote both economic and social self-sufficiency in Native communities through language instruction and preservation. The overarching purpose is, ultimately, to sustain over the long-term Native Language instruction and the use of Native language as the foundation of culturally-based community strategies to ensure the short- and long-term vitality and well-being of Native families and communities.
The new Initiative will include a rigorous evaluation in order to identify the range of promising practices that deliver positive gains in Native language proficiency and fluency leading to progress across key indicators related to educational success, positive mental health outcomes, increased earning capacity, and other outcomes related to well-being.
Questions asked for consultation:
- What considerations should ANA take into consideration for short-term and longterm vitality?
- How should we measure/determine the impact that language instruction and preservation on educational success, positive mental health outcomes, increased earning capacity, and other outcomes related to well-being.? (Building the evidence base) For example, co-develop with grantees one set of metrics, or allow funding to be used for each grantee to develop their own set of metrics?
Tribal Consultation and Public Comment: ANA solicited input via listening sessions and tribal consultation this summer and fall. ANA discussed the proposal at NCAI midyear in June in St. Paul, MN and at the ACF Tribal Consultation in September in Washington, DC. We also posted this description on our website to solicit comments. ACF will issue a Notice of Public comment that will be open for 15 days. ANA issued the funding forecast and should publish the funding announcement in grants.gov in early 2016.