Laguna,
New Mexico
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Jeanie McNabb
Division of Early Childhood
P.O. Box 798
Laguana, NM 87026
(505) 552-6467
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| Description of effective Public Awareness and Child Find activities implemented in rural areas of your service region.
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- We do child find activities in the 6 villages. At the Child Finds there are representatives for WIC, CHR, and the hospital, so kids get nutrition, health, developmental, hearing, dental, and vision screenings. For coming to the Child Find the kids get to pick out a free book. Families get coupons for a hamburger and coke through a vendor that they contract with to be there and then there is a person dressed up in a costume, for example Winnie the Pooh, that the kids get their pictures taken with. It's a fun day for families and many families will choose to come to more than one child find just because they have a good time. It's interesting to parents to see how their child progresses in the different areas and also an excellent way for us to see kids that have just the beginnings of dental problems, ear infections or whatever that may lead to a later referral. They have a new theme every year and have people from the community submit art and they choose a different person's art each year for the theme. They have T-shirts made up with the theme and give them to everyone that volunteers or works at the event.
- About 4 years ago with a grant from the State of New Mexico we were able to put together a booklet about Laguana child rearing practices and made a video about the Department of Ed. and division of Early Childhood. Every family received one of the videos. This year they are going to do a journal with quotes about children and pictures of children from around the area. These will go out to all the families.
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| Collaboration with other agencies in implementing public awareness or child find activities.
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- We have an ICC in Laguana that sponsors an annual conference that's called Celebrating Our Young Children and also sponsors some outreach activities. The ICC meets quarterly. The representatives on that committee are pretty much the same people that participate in child find and those representatives are appointed by the tribal governor. They are more than just strongly urged to come. The ICC is important in terms of how they collaborate with other service providers.
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| How does information regarding your services reach the most rural areas?
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- Each village has a village bulletin board that they hang a flyer on as well as handing the flyers out to the different agencies.
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| Resources received from Local Agencies
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