Hopa Mountain invests in rural and tribal citizen leaders who are improving education, ecological health, and economic development in their hometowns.
About Hopa Mountain’s StoryMakers Program
Through Community Teams made up of citizen leaders, Hopa Mountain’s StoryMakers program shares key messages about the importance of providing a nurturing home environment and encouraging positive talk, play, and interaction with babies and children in their earliest months and years of life. In order to share these messages, we offer:
High-quality, age- and culturally-appropriate, children’s books as tools to enhance children’s social, emotional and cognitive development
Current parent-friendly child development information and book-sharing ideas
Personal encouragement to shape home life for children’s success with relationships, literacy, learning, and lifelong health and well-being.
The goal of the StoryMakers initiative is to work with Teams in order to support to caregivers of children 0-8 living in Montana’s rural and tribal communities—because every parent, if given confidence and helpful resources, has the power to provide their child with the positive, nurturing experiences that factor so heavily in healthy brain development.
The Role of the Community Team
Community Teams, through which StoryMakers supports parents and caregivers in communities, are composed of diverse local leaders in education, health, and social services. Team members receive training about the links between children’s early learning and health and their future success through an Annual Gathering, visits by Hopa Mountain staff, conference calls every other month, research summary emails, and more informally, through staff conversations with individual Team members.
Local Teams reach families with this essential early learning message: Parents and primary caregivers can do small things every day that build steady, secure relationships—along with cognitive skills, language, and health —with their children. These everyday opportunities include reading and storytelling, counting, talking, singing, imaginative play, and bedtime routines.
There is a growing body of research indicating that it is not economic status, education of parents, or race that impacts an individual’s success in school and life, rather it is the sheer number of words spoken to them when they are very young. With the help of our Community Teams, we hope to spread this message and empower parents and caregivers to build on their strengths as they create home environments filled with a love of lifelong learning.
StoryMakers Team Requirements (please read carefully)
Our goal is for Community Teams to use StoryMakers books and child development materials to support the spread of the early learning message to families; direct contact with parents and caregivers at the time resources are given keeps StoryMakers from becoming another “book distribution” program.
Program Requirements:
A StoryMakers sign should be set up somewhere in the lobby of your organization letting families know that they can receive free children’s books and materials at this site from Hopa Mountain. The StoryMakers sign will be provided at the time that your organization registers to participate in the program.
Books and bookmarks should be given together when talking with parents and caregivers about the importance of early literacy and health. The curriculum for the program is found on the bookmarks. Share a tip or two each time that you talk with parents from the bookmarks.
No stickers should ever be placed on the books.
Every staff member that wants to be a StoryMakers Team member at your organization and distribute books must participate in a short training program by our staff. Please contact the Coordinator at the address below.
A lead Team member must provide a bi-annual report to Hopa Mountain documenting the number of family contacts, books distributed, and names and addresses of Team members.
Annual renewal of program agreement and link to our website through your organization’s website.
Other important opportunities for Teams to give regular feedback to Hopa Mountain include participation in bi-monthly conference calls, circulation of parent/caregiver surveys, individual correspondence, and brief (twice-annual) end-of-cycle reports, which are sent to us along with formal requests for new board books. These methods are used to further evaluate how StoryMakers is working, what changes will be helpful, and generally how the program might evolve to better support families’ efforts to prepare their very young children for success in learning.
Questions? For more information, please contact:
Verenice Rodriguez
StoryMakers Program Coordinator
(406) 586-2455
verenice@hopamountain.org
