Exploring Roles in the ECE Community: Local and State Levels

     When I was a single mother, I had no knowledge of all most of the resources available to single mothers today.  WIC is one such organization.  It is set up to assist Women, Infants, and Children offering nutritional education and vouchers for nutritious foods for pregnant and breast-feeding mothers.  They also serve infants and children under five year of age who are of the low income and those nutritionally at-risk.  The Child and Family Resource Center in Manhattan is the location for getting assistance.

     SNAP/Supplemental Nutrition Program provides qualifying households with food benefits, healthy diet and education on food preparation.  In Kansas, it is called the Food Assistance Program “serves as the first line of defense against hunger. It provides crucial support to elderly households, to low-income working households, to other low-income households that include the unemployed or disabled and to households transitioning from welfare to work. Food assistance customers can spend their benefits to buy eligible nutritious food and plants and seeds to grow food for their household to eat (dcf.ks.gov, 2012). 

     Another program that is active in Riley County Kansas is the Raising Riley Program that gives assistance and scholarships to children for day care.  This is a program endorsed by Smart Start of Kansas.  Smart Start is a program that collaborates with community-based grants through the Kansas Children’s Cabinet. 

     I chose these programs because they are programs that provide food assistance and childcare.  These three programs provide nutrition and education.  I know that there are many more programs but these are the ones that are closest to me, as I have worked with families who had to use them. 

     I would like to work for the Riley County Health Department in the WIC Program.  I would like to be a part of the teaching nutritional information and recipes for cooking wisely with the resources they have.  I have the experience and nutritional knowledge, without the paper degree, to teach in this program. For this reason I am looking into setting up a single mothers' ministry through my church.

References:

WIC/Riley County Health Department Retrieved from http://www.rcmhealth.org/services/wic

Food Assistance-Economic & Employment Services Retrieved from http://www.dcf.ks.gov/services/ees/Pages/Food/FoodAssistance.aspx

Early Childhood Associate Apprenticeship Program, Retrieved from http://www.kansasecaap.org/index.aspx?NID=80