 | Abbott Northwestern Children’s Center of the YWCA of Minneapolis
Abbott Northwestern’s Children’s Center of the YWCA of Minneapolis opened its doors in December 2006. In addition to providing care for up to 99 children from infancy through school age whose parents live in the community or work at Abbott Northwestern Hospital, the center also houses the Child Care Business Development Program. This unique child care incubator program nurtures culturally specific child care businesses organized by new Americans and other underserved groups. Operating out of “bungalows,” spaces designed to look and feel like a home setting, new American women receive training not only in how to provide quality care to children, but also how to become entrepreneurs who will eventually operate their own family child care businesses.
According to Jim Nicholie, program manager for the Abbott Northwestern Children’s Center, “Our center grew out of an assessment in the Phillips community in the mid 1990s, which identified the need for more culturally specific child care for new Americans. First Children’s Finance was highly involved in starting the center. First Children’s selected the YWCA, and I’ve been there from the beginning. I was originally a FCF consultant on this project.”
He went on to say, “Since FCF was involved from the beginning, we knew what they were doing and they knew what we were doing. Now we have a center on the campus of Abbott with four English language rooms and four bungalows – two Somali immersion and two Spanish immersion.”
It is important to many immigrant parents that their children be able to speak their native language as well as English as a way to retain their heritage and culture. With the help of the Growth Fund, the Children’s Center has been able to use interpreters during meetings and training with the providers. More importantly, the Children’s Center has been able to develop materials in both Somali and Spanish for providers to use once they move out into their own homes and start their own child care businesses.
“Having a trusted partner we can talk to and call on is very important,” comments Nicholie. “FCF’s involvement from the beginning has been a tremendous benefit. We don’t consider them outsiders.”
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