Nutrition And Child Development Inc. (NCD)
Terry Barnett, executive director
Debbie Jones, day-care center director
4150 S. Poplar St.
POBox 4569
Casper, Wyo. 82604
(307) 237-1496

Filling a large, bright, department-store-size space in a rambling shopping center on the south side of Casper, where the shady bowl that holds the city rises toward a range of jagged peaks, NCD appears to be, and is, a large, well-run day-care center.

But it also is much more.

As one of Wyoming's three "sponsoring agencies" for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Child Care Food Program, the center passes an average of $86,000 per month for food and nutrition from USDA through the state Department of Education to an average of 1,800 children per day in more than 300 family day-care operations and day-care centers.

While there's nothing particularly unusual about this, the 13-year-old program is a model in the creative way it carries out the federal mandate to accompany the money with nutrition education ... and in its outreach to help poor people learn the necessary child-care and management skills to operate family day-care centers for 6 to 11 children, offering the families a way to supplement their income while increasing the availability of affordable day care for Wyoming's working poor.

In addition to operating four Casper-area day-care centers serving about 200 children, NDC supervises more than 300 other family centers. Its staff inspects the centers three times a year, providing operators nutrition education and technical assistance aimed at ensuring that children receive healthy, well-balanced meals, a prerequisite to reimbursement through the federal program.

NDC also provides the state-required training programs (eight credit hours per year of approved training are mandated) needed for day-care providers to receive state licensing. Training is offered at periodic all-day workshops, as well as through correspondence courses, in a baker's dozen of topics such as "health and safety in child care," "stimulating children through activities," "managing your child-care business," "children with special needs," and more.

In other model programs, NDC (thanks to a grant from its first director) has a small endowment fund it uses to give $50 grants to family day-care operators who need a little money for such necessities as toys or books for the children or classes to enhance their own skills.

It also operates a special after-school and summer program for latchkey children, serving approximately 100 children with a safe place to go after school, featuring field trips, homework assistance and buses to and from school.

All the feature stories on @GRASS-ROOTS.ORG's pages are reported and written by Robin Garr, a prize-winning journalist who has visited more than 500 innovative grassroots programs in all 50 states since 1990.

Browse his book, Reinvesting In America, at Amazon.com.

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